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Electronic Quarterly Trilingual (English, Arabic, French) Philosophical Journal For
Logic, Epistemology and Scientific Thought
mlika_hamdi@yahoo.fr
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Mohammed Abattouy
(Universit Mohammed V- Agdal, Rabat, Maroc)
Maher Abdel Kader Mohamed Ali
(Alexandria University, Egypt)
Samir Abuzaid
(Engineering Consultant, Egypt)
Hourya Benis Sinaceur
(CNRS, France)
Ali Benmakhlouf
(Universit Paris 12, France)
Zoubaida Mounya Benmissi
(ENS Constantine, Algrie)
Azlarabe Lahkim Bennani
(Universit Dhar Mehraz-Fs, Maroc)
Zeineb Ben Said
(Universit de Tunis, Tunisie)
Paul Boghossian
(New York University, USA)
Pierre Cassou-Nogus
(Universit Paris 8, France)
Annalisa Coliva
(Universit degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italie)
Tim Crane
(University of Cambridge, UK)
Bahaa Darwish
(Minia University, Egypt)
Bernard DEspagnat
(CERN Universit Paris-sud 11, France)
Jean Dhombres
(Centre Koyr, EHESS-Paris, France)
Viviane Durant-Guerrier
(Universit de Montpellier, France)
Page 3
Hassan Elbahi
(Universit Ibn Tofail, Maroc)
Nejib Elhassadi
(Universit de Benghazi, Libye)
Pascal Engel
(EHESS-Paris, France)
Miguel Espinoza
(Universit de Strasbourg, France)
Nic Fillion
(Universit Simon Fraser, Canada)
Luciano Floridi
(Oxford University, Italie)
Mohamed Ali Halouani
(Universit de Sfax, Tunisie)
Djamel Hamoud
(Universit de Constantine, Algrie)
Mirja Hartimo
(Helsinki University, Finland)
Ahmad Hasnaoui
(CNRS-Paris, France)
Ali Hosseinkhani
(Allameh Tabatabai University, Iran)
Gilbert Hottois
(Acadmie Royale de Belgique)
Maria Carla Galavotti
(Universit de Bologne, Italie)
Peter Graham
(Univesrit de Californie Riverside, USA)
Henrik Lagerlund
(UWO, London, Sude)
Salah Ismal
(Cairo University, Egypt)
Page 4
Dale Jacquette
(Universitt Bern, USA)
Angle Kremer-Marietti
(Universit de Picardie, France)
Alain Lecomte
(Universit Paris 8, France)
Muhammad Legenhausen
(University of Qom, Iran)
Oystein Linnebo
(Birkbeck University, UK)
Michael Lynch
(University of Connectitut, USA)
Paolo Mancosu
(University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Ridha Makhlouf
(Professeur en Carcinologie, Tunisie)
Mathieu Marion
(Universit du Qubec Montral, Canada)
Michele Marsonet
(University of Genoa, Italie)
Hichem Messaoudi
(Carthage University, Tunisie)
Amirouche Moktefi
(IRIST-Strasbourg, Archives Poincar, France)
Hany Ali Moubarez
(An Shems University-Cairo, Egypt)
Philippe Nabonnand
(Universit Nancy 2, France)
Iraj Nikseresht
(Teheran University, Iran)
Salah Osman
(Minoufiya University, Egypt)
Page 5
Mlika Ouelbani
(Universit de Tunis, Tunisie)
David Papineau
(Kings College, London, UK)
Fabrice Pataut
(CNRS, Paris, France)
Michel Paty
(Directeur mrite au CNRS, Paris, France)
Demetris Portides
(Chyprus University, Chypre)
Roger Pouivet
(CNRS- Universit de Lorraine, France)
Graham Priest
(Melbourne, St Andrews, Graduate Center New York Universities, Australie)
Shahid Rahman
(Universit Lille 3, France)
Roshdi Rashed
(Directeur mrite au CNRS-Paris)
Franois Recanati
(Institut Nicod-Paris, France)
Nicholas Rescher
(Pittsburgh University, USA)
Manuel Rebuschi
(Archives Poincar, France)
Jacques Riche
(Universit catholique de Louvain, Belgique)
Jean-Grard Rossi
(Universit de Picardie, France)
Jean-Michel Salanskis
(Universit Paris 10, France)
John R. Searle
(UC Berkeley, USA)
Marco Sgarbi
(Universit de Vnice, Italie)
Page 6
Thierry Simonelli
(Revue Dogma, Luxembourg)
Peter Simons
(Trinity College, Dublin, Irlande)
Antonia Soulez
(Universit Paris 8, France)
Hassan Tahiri
(Universit de Lisbonne/CNRS, Lille, Maroc)
Youssef Tibesse
(Universit Sidi Mohamed BenAbdallah, Fs, Maroc)
Claudine Tiercelin
(Collge de France, Paris, France)
Denis Vernant
(Universit de Grenoble, France)
Joseph Vidal-Rosset
(Archives Poincar, France)
Bernard Vitrac
(Directeur au CNRS, France)
Page 7
AL-MUKHATABAT
accepts for publication philosophical papers on Logic, Analytic Philosophy, scientific
thought and Epistemology, defined in a very broad sense to include Philosophy and
History of Logic, Theory of knowledge and Philosophy and History of Sciences. The
aims of the Journal are promoting dialogue between cultures, improving scientific
method into philosophical thoughts and encouraging logical and epsitemological
creativity. Papers submitted must not exceed 25 pages (normal size), including
references, footnotes and bibliography. They are accepted in Arabic, French and
English. Authors should provide the journal with a copy of the paper together with an
abstract in English and in French. Authors are notified of the final verdict of the
referees: they are notified as to the acceptance or rejection of his/her paper for
publication within a period of three months. The articles published in this Journal are
the possession of their authors and all rights of publishing are reserved by them.
.
.
. 25
.
AL-MUKHATABAT
est une Revue lectronique, trimestrielle et trilingue, qui publie des articles indits de
Logique, de pense scientifique, de Philosophie analytique et dEpistmologie au
sens large incluant la philosophie et lhistoire de la logique, la thorie de la
connaissance, la philosophie et lhistoire des sciences. Les articles sont soumis de
faon anonyme deux membres du comit scientifique de la Revue pour lvaluer.
Lenvoi dun document la Revue veut dire que lauteur lautorise le publier sur
son site. Larticle reste la proprit pleine de son auteur. Il doit tre envoy sous
format doc. ne dpassant pas 25 pages (notes et bibliographie incluses),
accompagn dun rsum en anglais et en franais. La revue vise mieux
familiariser les lecteurs aux nuances de la philosophie analytique et favoriser les
approches argumentatives et logiques dans le traitement des problmes
philosophiques, thiques, sociaux, politiques, religieux et mtaphysiques.
Page 8
Table of Contents
.........................24-35
............................................................................................................................66-99
Mika Suojanen (University of Turku) : The Relationship Between Empirical Knowledge
and Experiences..........................................................................................................100-110
Sami Dhahbi Jemel (Sherbrooke University) : Langage et Ralit........................111-119
Sihem Sebai (Universit de Tunis) :
.................................................................................120-130
Isa Spahiu (International Balkan University, Skopje) : Literal vs Non Literal: English and
Albanian Contrastive Study.......................................................................................131-139
Ilef Chakroun Ben Salem (Insitut Suprieur des Beaux Arts de Sousse) : Science ou
Art ! L'impact des nouvelles technologies sur la conception architecturale et
sculpturale contemporaines......................................................................................140-151
Omar Jasim Mohammed (Mosul University, Iraq) :
.............................................................................................................152-167
Afroditi Tsiara, Evangelia Panou et Kostas Kalachanis (National and Kapodistrian
University, Athens): The Name Given of Constellations: Milestones in their History.............168-175
Page 9
Chres Lectrices,
Chers Lecteurs,
Hamdi MLIKA,
Sousse le 26 Avril 2014.
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Fabrice Pataut
(Sciences, Normes, Dcision CNRS, Universit Paris 4)
) 1884( -
.
-
)1 ( : .
. ) 2(
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.
Rsum Largument anti-psychologiste dvelopp par Frege dans les Grundlagen der
Arithmetik (1884) vise lide quune reprsentation mentale a un rle jouer dans les
calculs et les dmonstrations arithmtiques. Nous distinguons lobjection frgenne
propre au domaine dinvestigation des Grundlagen dune objection anti-psychologiste
gnralise. Sur cette base, nous distinguons deux dfis poss au ralisme : le dfi
orthodoxe pos par Dummett, et un dfi en termes de concepts et de contenus mentaux.
Dans la mesure o une thorie de la signification immodeste [full-blooded] dispose des
moyens requis pour viter les deux cueils du psychologisme et du solipsisme, une
thorie de la formation des concepts et des contenus se doit galement dtre immodeste.
Elle doit dcrire ab initio les conditions de formation des concepts et les conditions
dacquisition des contenus.
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1. Parmi les fautes graves lgitimement imputes au psychologisme, lune des plus
retentissantes est la conception subjectiviste du nombre comme produit de notre
pense, comme entit mentale rsultant de notre activit psychologique individuelle
interne. Berkeley dfend cette conception dans son Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
de 1709 (Berkeley [1709] 1895) lorsquil soutient que le nombre est entirement une
crature de lesprit [creature of the mind] . Il serait sans nul doute fastideux de dresser la
liste exhaustive de toutes les conceptions subjectivistes du nombre qui ont t
dfendues la fin du dix-neuvime sicle et au tournant du vingtime tant la tentation
psychologiste dnonce par Husserl en 1900 dans ses Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (Husserl
[1900] 1969) tait grande et largement partage. Nous pouvons au moins rappeler les
auteurs auxquels Frege sest attaqu aux paragraphes 26 et 27 des Grundlagen der
Arithmetik (Frege [1884] 1969). De mme que pour Berkeley lesprit cre le nombre en
combinant ses ides, pour Lipschitz lorigine du nombre est chercher dans lopration
mentale consistant passer des choses [Dinge] en revue et les additionner (Lipschitz
1877-1880). Schloemilch, de son ct, soutient que le nombre est la reprsentation de la
place dun objet dans une srie [Vorstellung der Stelle eines Objects in einer Reihe] (Schloemilch
1851).
Quelle que soit la manire dont on aura prtendu que lesprit humain a form une
ide ou une reprsentation mentale du nombre, ce qui est vis par largument antipsychologiste de Frege est la conception selon laquelle le nombre comme ide ou
reprsentation mentale a un rle jouer dans les calculs et les dmonstrations
arithmtiques. Lobjection frgenne nest pas tant dirige contre lide du passage en
revue ou de la reprsentation dune place vide remplir en tant que telles, que contre la
conception commune tous les partisans du psychologisme selon laquelle la
reprsentation mentale dun passage en revue ou dune place vide, autrement dit une
crature de lesprit , pourrait jouer un rle proprement et intrinsquement
mathmatique.
Il y a dune part une objection catgorielle : les nombres relvent dune catgorie
ontologique, les reprsentations mentales dune autre, de sorte que la manire dont le
nombre nat en nous [in uns entsteht] cest--dire dont sa reprsentation nat en nous
ne peut clairer sa nature (Frege op. cit. : 26). Il y a par ailleurs une objection que lon
pourrait appeler pistmologique ou fonctionnelle : les reprsentations mentales sont
mathmatiquement inertes. Frege objecte bien videmment quun nombre est distinct
dune reprsentation mentale. Il ne nie pas quil y ait de telles reprsentations, mais
seulement que leurs objets, autrement dit ce quelles reprsentent, puisse natre en nous.
Les reprsentations, dont la ralit psychologique nest pas mettre en doute, ne
peuvent, prcisment en tant quobjets mentaux, jouer le rle que le partisans des
dfinitions psychologisantes sont prts leur attribuer.
Ce qui est fautif dans la conception de lentier naturel comme reprsentation de la
place dun objet dans une srie tient donc fondamentalement la notion de
reprsentation [Vorstellung]. Toute ressemblance avec le structuralisme contemporain est
par consquent superficielle. Un structuraliste comme Shapiro identifie les entiers
naturels des places [places] dans la structure des entiers naturels, la structure existant
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preuve, elle ne peuvent en faire partie. Lobjection, mutatis mutandis, sapplique aussi
bien au cas des tulipes. Les dfinitions psychologisantes ne peuvent tre daucune utilit
en botanique. Si nous dfinissions les termes de la botanique laide des oprations
mentales requises pour la saisie des concepts de la botanique, ou laide des
reprsentations mentales de leurs objets standard ou typiques, nous ne pourrions tablir
la valeur de vrit daucun de ses noncs.
Nous pouvons prsent prendre note de deux objections : (i) lobjection propre au
domaine dinvestigation des Grundlagen, selon laquelle aucune description des processus
psychologiques internes [Beschreibung der innern Vorgnge] (Frege loc. cit.) prcdant un
jugement de nombre ne peut tenir lieu de dtermination ou de dfinition du concept de
nombre, et (ii) lobjection anti-psychologiste sous sa forme gnralise. La premire fait
valoir que le definiens ou lexplanans psychologique dune expression numrique ne peut
jouer aucun rle dans la dmonstration dun nonc darithmtique contenant des
occurrences de cette expression. La deuxime fait valoir que le definiens ou lexplanans
psychologique dun terme t ne peut jouer aucun rle dans la justification dun nonc
contenant des occurrences de t.
Que devons-nous conclure de ces objections, dune part en ce qui concerne les
expressions du definiendum de la dfinition ou de lexplicandum de lexplication, et dautre
part en ce qui concerne leur objet ou leur contenu ? Autrement dit, quelle leon faut-il
tirer quant aux termes dorigine remplacs par ceux du definiens ou de lexplanans et, par
ailleurs, quant ce qui se trouve par l-mme dfini, analys ou expliqu ? Notre
conclusion doit tre quil existe des restrictions quant ce qui peut lgitimement jouer
le rle de definiendum ou dexplicandum. Prenons-en note sous une forme limite et sous
une forme gnralise :
(RESTRICTION 1) Si le definiens ou lexplanans dune expression numrique ne peut tre
un definiens ou un explanans psychologique, les termes du definiendum ou de lexplicandum
qui lui correspondent ne peuvent renvoyer un objet psychologique, autrement dit
une reprsentation.
(RESTRICTION 2) Si le definiens ou lexplanans dune expression ne peut tre un definiens
ou un explanans psychologique, les termes du definiendum ou de lexplicandum qui lui
correspondent ne peuvent renvoyer un objet psychologique, autrement dit une
reprsentation.
(Notons que la deuxime restriction sapplique mme au cas o les termes du
definiendum ou de lexplicandum ont en apparence pour dnotation des reprsentations ou,
plus gnralement, des objets psychologiques. Si le definiens est par exemple de nature
physique ou physiologique, lobjet de lexplication ou de la dfinition ne peut tre
proprement parler de nature psychologique.)
4. Jaimerais maintenant aborder une question en apparence loigne des
considrations anti-psychologistes des Grundlagen. Sommes-nous ncessairement
coupables de psychologisme ou de solipsisme si nous choisissons de concevoir la
querelle dummettienne du ralisme comme une querelle portant sur la formation des
concepts et sur les contenus mentaux plutt que sur le choix dun concept central pour
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Nous avons l en ralit non pas une conception psychologisante de lentier naturel
comme reprsentation mentale dune position, mais une conception voisine du genre de
constructivisme dfendu par Shapiro o les entiers sont conus de manire relationnelle
comme des places dans une structure (une srie ) qui est un cas particulier de squence
(voir supra, section 1). Notons galement que Heyting propose la rflexion suivante
pour se justifier :
Je dois nanmoins faire une remarque, essentielle une bonne comprhension de
notre position intuitionniste : nous nattribuons pas dexistence indpendamment
de notre pense [thought], autrement dit dexistence transcendante [transcendental] aux
entiers naturels, ni aucun autre objet mathmatique. Bien quil puisse tre vrai que
chaque pense renvoie un objet dont on conoit quil existe indpendamment de
ladite pense, nous pouvons laisser cette question ouverte. Quoi quil en soit, il nest
pas ncessaire quun tel objet soit compltement indpendant de la pense humaine.
Mme sils devaient tre indpendants des actes individuels de pense, les objets
mathmatiques dpendent, de par leur nature mme, de la pense humaine. Leur
existence nest garantie que pour autant quelle peut tre dtermine par la pense.
Ils ont des proprits pour autant quil est possible de les discerner en eux par la
pense. Mais cette possibilit de connaissance ne nous est rvle que par lacte de
connaissance lui-mme. La croyance [faith] dans lexistence transcendante, sans le
soutien des concepts, doit tre rejete comme mthode de preuve mathmatique.
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aboutir. Autrement dit, nous percevons que la construction mentale recherche ne peut
tre poursuivie. Brouwer affirme dune part que la recherche de la construction
mathmatique est effectue sans le recours au langage, et dautre part que le principe
logique de non contradiction ne joue aucun rle dans notre dcision darrter la
recherche dune telle construction. Non seulement le principe lui-mme nest daucune
utilit, en tant que loi logique du calcul des propositions, mais sa reprsentation ou sa
saisie ne joue aucun rle dans la justification de la dcision du sujet cratif darrter la
recherche dune preuve. Autrement dit encore, la formalisation du raisonnement
intuitionniste nappartient pas en droit aux mathmatiques intuitionnistes. Comme le fait
valoir trs clairement Heyting en se faisant lavocat de Brouwer :
Si la formalisation du langage est vraiment la tendance actuelle de la science [the
trend of science], alors les mathmatiques intuitionnistes ne font pas partie de la
science en ce sens du mot [ science ]. Cest plutt un phnomne de la vie, une
activit naturelle de lhomme qui fait elle-mme lobjet dune tude laide de
mthodes scientifiques. Elle a effectivement t tudie laide de telles mthodes,
savoir par la formalisation du raisonnement intuitionniste [], mais il est vident
que cette tude et ses rsultats nappartiennent pas aux mathmatiques
intuitionnistes. On voit bien quun tel examen scientifique des mathmatiques
intuitionnistes nen livrera jamais une description complte et dfinie []. Aussi
utiles et intressantes que puissent tre ces considrations mta-intuitionnistes, on
ne peut les incorporer dans les mathmatiques intuitionnistes elles-mmes.
Heyting 1971 : 9.
5. On pourrait aisment critiquer Heyting et douter que la formalisation du
raisonnement intuitionniste, laquelle Heyting a lui-mme considrablement contribu,
est bel et bien celle dune activit naturelle ou dun phnomne de la vie . (
propos de la logique classique, Brouwer considre que la croyance enracine dans la
validit universelle du principe du tiers-exclu est un phnomne de lhistoire de la
civilisation , de nature culturelle et non pas naturelle, qui sexplique dabord par le
caractre non contradictoire du principe. La croyance dans la validit pratique de la
logique classique pour les phnomnes ordinaires et quotidiens est une habitude acquise
par accumulation dimpressions successives qui ont fini par se donner lapparence
trompeuse de laprioricit. En ce qui concerne le cas particulier des mathmatiques, ces
impressions et ces habitudes sont rejeter. Les raisons intuitionnistes pour lesquelles
elles doivent ltre sont, elles, en revanche, infra-mathmatiques et non pas culturelles
ou historiques (voir Brouwer [1948] 1983 : 94-96)). Ce qui importe ici est que les
remarques de Brouwer et de Heyting sur la preuve comme activit mentale nous
offrent un point dappui pour envisager la question des risques psychologistes ou
solipsistes dune thorie de la formation des concepts et des contenus mentaux
dinspiration antiraliste. quel prix lantiralisme dummettien vite-t-il donc la fois
le psychologisme et le solipsisme ?
Revenons la question de la perception ou de la conscience (toutes deux idalises)
dune contradiction au cours de la recherche dune preuve ; ou, plus prcisment, la
perception du fait que la structure recherche ne peut tre, comme dit Brouwer,
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thorie qui dcrit de lextrieur et ab initio une capacit pratique de manire que
lacquisition de cette capacit soit quivalente lacquisition du concept. Ce qui compte
ici est quun locuteur puisse acqurir le concept pour peu quon lui enseigne les
capacits pratiques de reconnaissance des objets carrs que la thorie sattache dcrire.
Comment la thorie immodeste russit-elle fournir une telle description ? De
lextrieur, autrement dit sans recourir aux contenus dans lesquels figure dj le concept
de carr.
Nous savons maintenant que pour viter les cueils du psychologisme et du
solipsisme, la thorie antiraliste de la signification doit tre immodeste. Elle doit tre
mme de dcrire de lextrieur laptitude matriser un langage. Les limites de nos
capacits conceptuelles doivent donc tre des consquences de ce que nous sommes
capables de manifester effectivement dans une telle pratique. (Remarquons que la faute
que nous commettrions en cherchant construire une thorie modeste serait donc
galement celle que nous commettrions en faisant fi de ce quon a appel la thse de
priorit, autrement dit en faisant lerreur mthodologique danalyser les penses ou les
concepts avant danalyser au pralable le langage dans lequel ils sont exprimes.)
Il nous faut donc prsent distinguer deux dfis poss au ralisme, le dfi
orthodoxe pos par Dummett, et un dfi pos directement en termes de contenus ou
de concepts :
(Dfi A)
Montrez quil est possible quun nonc e de L soit vrai au-del de toute
vrification possible par les locteurs de L.
(Dfi B)
Montrez quil est lgitime de concevoir que ltat de choses dcrit par e
dans L soit ralis indpendamment de son accessibilit aux locuteurs de L.
Le premier dfi concerne la notion de vrit, le deuxime porte sur les conceptions
et les contenus mentaux. Quiconque cherche relever le premier dfi, autrement dit
rpondre directement lexigence de manifestabilit exhaustive dune saisie dun
concept de vrit non contraint par la vrifiabilit en principe se voit conduit soutenir
une thorie de la formation des concepts et des contenus conformment laquelle les
tats de choses transcendants ou inaccessibles peuvent tre lgitimement conus. Il
serait incohrent de soutenir que la vrit peut aller au-del de la vrifiabilit en
principe et quil est pourtant illgitime de former des conceptions dtats de choses
raliss indpendamment de leur accessibilit nos capacits cognitives. Par parit, il
serait incohrent de soutenir que la vrit ne peut aller au-del de la vrifiabilit en
principe bien quil soit malgr tout lgitime de former des conceptions dtats de choses
transcendants relativement nos capacits cognitives. Il y a bien videmment une
exigence dharmonie entre les contraintes antiralistes qui doivent tre imposes au
concept de vrit et celles qui doivent tre imposes la formation des concepts et la
saisie des contenus.
Ce qui importe ici est que limmodestie a un rle essentiel jouer : dans la mesure
o la thorie de la signification immodeste a tous les moyens requis pour viter les
cueils du psychologisme et du solipsisme, la thorie de la formation des concepts et
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des contenus mentaux se doit galement dtre immodeste. Elle doit dcrire de
lextrieur et ab initio leurs conditions de formation et dacquisition.
6. Revenons, pour finir, Berkeley. Pour Berkeley, quune ide ne puisse ressembler
autre chose qu une ide suffit rfuter le ralisme matrialiste, autrement dit la
conception selon laquelle la ralit extrieure est la fois entirement matrielle et
indpendante de nous. La rfutation de ce type de position sapplique aussi bien au cas
des nombres ou dautres objets abstraits : rien ne correspond nos ides ou nos
reprsentation mentales du nombre dans un univers platonicien dobjets
mathmatiques. Comme nous lavions rappel au dpart, le nombre, pour Berkeley, est
purement et simplement une crature de lesprit.
Dans la mesure o nous avons considr la question de lindpendance de la ralit
et de son inaccessibilit ventuelle nos capacits cognitives, la question berkeleyienne
pertinente pour la querelle du ralisme envisage ici est la suivante. Berkeley pourrait-il
soutenir que nous pouvons former une conception des ides de Dieu partir dune
ressemblance avec nos ides ? Puisque la seule chose laquelle une ide puisse
ressembler est une autre ide, nos ides imparfaites pourraient-elles ressembler, bien
que trs approximativement, aux ides parfaites de Dieu ?
Un antiraliste ne peut se satisfaire dune telle suggestion. Le problme ne serait pas
tant quil est douteux que nous puissions avoir une conception fiable des ides de
lentendement divin par le biais de leur ressemblance avec nos ides. Le problme est
plutt que nous risquerions alors de concevoir les ides de Dieu comme transcendantes
par excellence. Un antiraliste pourrait exprimer son opposition en termes ouvertement
smantiques en faisant valoir que la vrit des noncs reportant loccurrence suppose
de telle ou telle pense dans lentendement divin ne peut tre indpendante de ce que
nous sommes mme de justifer comme tant imputable un tel entendement. Si elles
ltait, de telles occurrences et de telles penses seraient tout simplement ineffables
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Berkeley (George), [1709] 1895, Essai dune nouvelle thorie de la vision, traduction franaise
de Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision par G. Beauvalon et D. Parodi, uvres choisies
de Berkeley, vol. 1, F. Alcan, Paris.
Brouwer (Luitzen Egbertus Jan), [1907] 1975, Over de Grondslagen der Wiskunde [On the
Foundations of Mathematics], Collected Works, vol. 1 : Philosophy and Foundations of
Mathematics, A. Heyting, ed., Elsevier, North Holland, pp. 11-101.
- [1948] 1983, Consciousness, philosophy and mathematics, Philosophy of
Mathematics Selected Readings, P. Benacerraf and H. Putnam, eds., Cambridge UP,
Cambridge, Mass., 2nd ed., pp. 90-96.
Dummett (Michael), [1973] 1991, La base philosophique de la logique intuitionniste ,
Philosophie de la logique, prface et traduction de langlais par F. Pataut, Les ditions de
Minuit, Coll. Propositions , Paris, pp. 79-131.
- 1976, What Is A Theory of Meaning? (I), Truth and Meaning - Essays in Semantics,
G. Evans and J. McDowell, eds., Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 67-137.
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Amel Alaouchiche
(Universit Alger 2)
Rsum Llment de la crise joue un rle considrable dans lvolution de la
connaissance scientifique sous ses divers aspects et ses diffrents domaines. Dans ce cadre,
la rupture scientifique selon Bachelard est une rupture rvolutionnaire qui garantit le
dpassement de tout obstacle pistmologique faisant rle dentraver le processus et le
dynamisme du travail scientifique. Selon le philosophe, il existe un lien entre lobstacle
pistmologique et le subconscient, ce dernier est considr comme son refuge obscur.
Ceci dit, il ny point de connaissance scientifique catgorique et absolue. Toute vrit,
quelle que soit sa rigueur, peut faire lobjet dune rvision et dune critique, et cest dans ce
contexte que Bachelard propose une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective, dont le
sujet serait le subconscient du chercheur, et dont lobjectif serais la dcouverte de
lensemble des obstacles pistmologique.
.
.
.
.
Abstract Crisis plays a significant role in the evolution of scientific knowledge with its
different aspects and in different areas. In this context, scientific break in Bachelard's
Philosophy is a revolutionary break that guarantee overcoming any obstacle making
epistemological role to hinder the process and dynamics of scientific work. According to
this philosopher, there is a link between the epistemological obstacle and the subconscious;
it is considered his dark refuge. That said, there is categorical and absolute scientific
knowledge. Truth whatever its severity may be subject to revision and criticism, and it is in
this context that Bachelard offers a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge, the subject
would be the subconscious of the researcher, and whose the objective would be the
discovery of all epistemological obstacles.
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24
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35
only taken as mens objects of desire but also as their domestic servants. Because she belongs to the
female sex, woman was imprisoned by and within her body. She was entrapped in the confines of
marriage and motherhood where cultural taboos surrounded her body. Victorians advocated a gendered
division of labor on the basis of the biological sex: the private sphere was attributed to women and the
public sphere to men. After the economic changes, woman entered progressively in the workforce and
begun thus her sexual war with man. Her non-domestic pursuits extended to public stages where she
challengingly made public performances and daringly faced a male audience. Figures like prima donnas,
daredevils, parachutists, balloonists, singers and actresses occupied public stages. Feminized spectacles
reflected womans awareness of her sexuality and made her explore pointedly sexual roles on and offstage. My paper tends then to explore womans reconsideration of her own body, her use of her own
biology and femininity which used to imprison her as a liberating tool. Her premeditated physical
exposure was a disruptive force that tended to unsettle social conventions and served as a radical
political act. Womans celebration of her female corporeality in the nineteenth century destroyed the
tradition of the asexual Angel in the House and reconstructed her sexual identity.
.
.
.
.
Rsum Le patriarcat exerait un contrle abusif sur le corps fminin o les femmes taient non
seulement prises comme des objets de dsir, mais aussi comme des domestiques. La femme tait
emprisonne par et dans son corps qui tait confin dans le cercle du mariage et de la maternit et
entour par les tabous. Les Victoriens ont impos une division sexuelle du travail partant du sexe
biologique o la sphre prive a t attribue aux femmes et la sphre publique aux hommes.
Nanmoins, aprs les changements conomiques, la femme entrait progressivement dans la mainduvre et commenait ainsi sa guerre sexuelle avec lhomme. Son envahissement de la vie publique sest
tendu aux scnes o elle jouait des spectacles avec dfiance devant un public masculin. Les
performances des prima donna, casse-cous, parachutistes, chanteuses et actrices permettaient la femme
dexplorer sa sexualit sur la scne et en dehors de la scne. Cet article essaie danalyser la
reconsidration de la femme de son propre corps, son utilisation de sa biologie et fminit qui
lemprisonnaient auparavant comme un moyen de libration. Son exposition physique dlibre tait un
acte politique radical qui avait lintention de perturber les conventions sociales. Au dix-neuvime sicle,
la femme a dtruit son image traditionnelle pour reconstruire une nouvelle identit sexuelle travers la
clbration publique de sa corporalit.
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0. Introduction
During the nineteenth century, womans body was seen by society, religion, law and
science as a natural state which calls for womans attachment to her home and children.
It was the main cause behind the slave-like state lived by women during that period, the
first source of womans humiliation and underestimation and the point which
empowered men and gave them more confidence in their physical abilities and natural
functions. Man thought that he was positioned to possess and protect woman because
of her weakness and that woman was destined to be under his rule. Yet after a long
struggle with traditions and cultural norms, woman started to protest against her mode
of living and decided to launch her quest for freedom. She became aware of her rights
as a human being and called for a viable participation in social life. The economic and
demographic conditions helped her invade the public sphere to seek an independent
regular income. The nineteenth-century working class girls began to get some education
first in the schools provided by the church then in state schools. Women obtained paid
occupations like school-teaching, handicrafts and industry; they also participated in the
charity work and religious campaigns and ultimately ascended public theatres. Womans
social visibility extended to self-exhibition in front of male audience. woman became a
public performer, using her body as a symbolic medium of self-manifestation in the
public world. Woman was a balloonist, equestrian, dancer, singer and actress.
By occupying such exhibitionist functions, woman proves that her body could be used
as a means of liberation instead of being her first source of imprisonment. On the stage,
female performers declared the release of their bodies from the domestic jail. The free
movement of the female body on the stage goes hand in hand with their desire for
liberation from patriarchy, cultural traditions and the slavery of husbands. They released
their repressed sexuality through their femininized spectacles and deconstructed their
gendered identity and established a new subjectivity.
1. The view of Society to Womans Body
Most of women in the nineteenth century lived in a state of slavery camouflaged under
the institutions of marriage and motherhood. In her book Woman in the Nineteenth
Century, Margaret Fuller compares marriage to slavery, claiming that there exists in the
minds of men a tone of feeling towards women as towards slavery (17). Since
husbands were the only holders of resources and wives had no independent means of
subsistence, women had to keep their obedience to men. Woman was considered as the
wife and mother who had to be responsible for the regulation of her house and rearing
of her children while man was seen as the worker and income provider par excellence.
Parents are convinced that marriage is the destiny of every girl, and the latter would
move from the authority of the father to the slavery of the husband. Fuller argues that
the father sells his daughter for a horse, and beats her if she runs away from her new
home because of the belief that she must marry, if it be only to find a protector, and a
home of her own (43). A woman who remained single would attract social disapproval
and pity; she would be subject to criticism and a sign of abnormality in society. Girls
received less education than boys, were barred from universities, and could obtain only
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low-paid jobs. Womens unique objective in life was to marry and reproduce. After
marriage, man becomes a legal owner of everything his wife possessed including money
or inheritances1 in addition to his manipulation of her body. Law and religion legalized
womans possession by man starting from the wifes written vow and verbal
engagement to obey her husband in the marriage ceremony2 and going through the
marital laws which were in favor of the husband. Every man had then the right to force
his wife into sex and childbirth. He can also take away his children without reason and
send them to be raised elsewhere in addition to his right to strip her of all her
possessions. A wife could not easily obtain a divorce, if she could not tolerate the quality
of life under marriage and decided to run away from her house, the police could capture
and return her, and her husband could imprison her. Adultery was not a sufficient
reason for a woman to divorce her husband whereas it was enough for a man to divorce
his wife3. All this was sanctioned by church, law, custom, history, and approved of by
society in general.
Science in its turn used scientific and biological arguments to rationalize Victorian
culture. Doctors and scientists wanted to explore human behavior in terms of biology.
Medically, the female body is constructed as the other to the male body, weakened by
an unstable reproductive system and subject to mental and physical disorder. Physicians
argued that womans biology shows her nurturing, emotional, frail and sickly nature.
The fact that she had smaller head, weaker muscles and frailer nervous system limits her
role to the domestic sphere. Womans body and central nervous system is said to be
controlled by her uterus and ovaries. Doctors classified woman as a domestic product
because of her physiology. They maintain that ovulation, menstruation and conception
show womans sickly and frail nature and prove her natural adherence to domestic
activities and inability to contribute to public life. Edward H. Clarke was a Harvard
Professor who campaigned for the prevention of female students to study in Harvard.
He blamed the womans rights movement for many nervous disorders and claimed that
female graduates would face infertility, difficult pregnancies and dangerous deliveries,
for the intellectual force in mathematical and Latin studies destroys brain cells and
affects womans genital organs. According to the doctors of the period, a woman should
stick to her house and limit her mental capacities to the domestic affairs such as the
economic management of mans income, child rearing and housework. Other
Before the passing of the 1882 Married Property Act, when a woman got married her wealth was passed
to her husband. If a woman worked after marriage, her earnings also belonged to her husband.
2 On September 12, 1922, the Episcopal Church voted to remove the word "obey" from the bride's
section of wedding vows. Other churches of the Anglican Communion each have their own authorized
prayer books. However, brides and grooms had to wait to year 2000 to select one of the two versions of
vows and decide whether to use the one which did not include the promise of obedience.
3 The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 gave men the right to divorce their wives on the grounds of
adultery. However, married women were not able to obtain a divorce if they discovered that their
husbands had been unfaithful. Once divorced, the children became the man's property and the mother
could be prevented from seeing her children. It was not until 1891 that women could not be forced to live
with husbands unless they wished to.
1
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39
pure to feel. Allen quotes Wiliam Wasserstrom when he explains what true womanhood
meant in the nineteenth century: womanliness came to mean sexlessness and in the
1840s and later fiction relied on this conviction whenever it presented an ideal woman
(qtd. in Allen 31).
Thus the true woman should be asexual or passionless, otherwise she would be
identified as a prostitute or as anomalous woman. Up to the nineteenth century, women
were usually perceived as over-sexed and the cause of men's fall in the wiles of
immorality. Women with strong sexual desires were defined both in fiction as
temptresses, sorceresses and whores. They are built around the popular image of Eve 1
as the epitome of feminine evil and shown using their bodies to seduce man and cause
his downfall. That is why a true woman is warned about being like Eve and called rather
to follow the model of Mary the paragon. In the introduction of Fullers book, Donna
Dickenson describes this condition of true womanhood and explains the stereotyping of
women in society, saying: A new ideal of female passionlessness emerged in AngloAmerican culture in the late eighteenth century; The natural woman was sexless;
prostitutes were unnatural (xxvi). In victorian society, woman learns to disavow her
own sexuality in the apprehension of a repressive patriarchal law. In his book, The
Victorian Period: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, Robin Gilmour
assesses Victorian religion, science and politics in their own terms and in relation to the
larger cultural politics of the middle-class challenge to traditionalism. He deals with the
religious principles that were taught within an institutional framework and criticizes the
role of religion in instilling in women the necessity of rejecting their own bodies and
cling to their spirituality; he claims that if the great evil of evangelicalism was bullying
the conscience, that of Tractarianism was teaching the Victorians to hate their own
flesh (Gilmour 86). In the nineteenth century, these religious institutions were an
integral part of the patriarchal society; their role was to assert the contemporary
didacticism among the different categories of society, and essentially women. They were
supported by biological determinism which regards social and sexual dependency of
woman as natural. They similarly legalized mans double physical control over womans
body in both sexual and domestic matters.
2. Womans invasion of the Public Sphere
During the nineteenth century, America and Europe experienced major economic,
political, cultural and social changes. The rise of capitalism and entrepreneurship incited
womans participation in the public sphere. the 1830s became a turning point in
womens economic participation, public activities and social visibility. Woman was
manifested not only as a worker but also as a rebel; by 1835 occurred the first industrial
Eve represents everything about a woman a man should guard against. In both form and symbol, Eve is
woman, and because of her, the prevalent belief in the West has been that all women are by nature
disobedient, guileless, weak-willed, prone to temptation and evil, disloyal, untrustworthy, deceitful,
seductive, and motivated in their thoughts and behavior purely by self-interest. Her antithesis is Mary the
paragon who stands for purity and sexlessness. A true woman was expected to follow the model of Mary
rather than Eve.
1
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strikes in US led by women to protest wage reductions. Womans voice started to rise
progressively in the public arena. She began to participate in reform movements, moral
crusades, appealed for education, financial independence and control over reproduction.
Women enter non-traditional roles and new significant stage roles were offered to them;
they became female writers, directors, performers. Women started to make public
addresses about political issues and led campaigns attacking slavery and calling for
human rights. Their public leadership was considered as going against womans sacred
domestic role and seen as a sign of social digression. Fuller argues that Woman who
speak in public, if they have a moral power, such as have been felt, from Angelina
Grimke and Abby Kelly; that is if they speak for conscience sake, to serve a cause which
they hold sacred, invariably subdue the prejudices of their hearers, ,and excite an interest
proportionate to the aversion with which it had been the purpose to regard them (72).
She goes on to quote Abby Kelly in the Town-House when she argued for mans
humiliation of female public speakers: the scene was not unheroic to see that woman,
true to humanity and her own nature, a centre of rude eyes and tongues, even gentlemen
feeling licensed to make part of a species of mob around a female out of her
sphereShe acted like a gentle hero, with her mild decision and womanly calmness
(Fuller 72). Nancy Cott similarly exposes the situation of the nineteenth-century woman
and shows the unacceptability of her public participation: Womens public life
generally was so minimal that if one addressed a mixed audience she was greeted with
shock and hostility (5)
Male aversion to female public speechs was not only caused by womans abandonment
of her domestic sphere, but also of her physical manifestation in public spaces and the
use of her sacred body which was the source of her piety as a tool in her public
addresses. Womans hands, gestures and voice became a medium of her public visibility
after being her means in performing the domestic role. Political or theatrical
performances require the use of the body and their scripts include all bodily operations
where speaking the text involves speaking with the body (Aston and Savona 117). In
their book The Power of Address, Leith and Myerson explain the performers use of the
body as a technique of performance; they argue that -from acting to preaching, political
oratory to storytelling- are the resources of the body which are generally grouped under
the term delivery. We may refer to voice, posture, gesture and face (8). On the stage or on
political podiums, the movement of the human body and the gestures of the performer
like showing, pointing, knocking on the desk, applauding, making face or hands gestures
are referred to as kinesics. That body motion interaction is considered as a central
element in creating an expressive textual communication and assuring an effective
transmission of ideas. In face-to-face communication, the performer uses facial
expressions, eye gaze and other body languages to alter, emphasize or strengthen their
spoken words. These non-linguistic cues are able to convey social and emotional
information accompanied by the spoken words. Furthermore, whether in a religious
sermon, political address or theatrical scene, the female performer is required to use her
voice in terms of stress patterns, intonation and volume. Sometimes the female body is
more influential in the performance of certain roles than the males. in acting, Aston
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41
and Savona give the example of some nineteenth-century actresses like Sarah Bernhardt
whose physical features fitted for certain stage roles. They argue that the physical
attributes of a performer are natural or given, but acquire significance on the stage (to
wit, the Semitic signs of Bernhardts features, her long thin arms and slight body which
signified frailty (108). The nineteenth-century female performer was aware of the
power of her body in delivering any oral presentation. Thus the visual and verbal
component of a performance imposes the use of female corporeality in public stages,
which breaks the taboo and transcends social conventions.
The body is vital in political as well as theatrical performances to convince the audience;
wittingly it was taken as a source of power for female performers to subvert the
traditional view to womans body. It became a means of self-expression and a medium
of liberation. Performance (written and acted), states Helen Keyssar, deconstructs
sexual difference and thus undermines patriarchal power (1). The theatre became a
proper place to throw away polarities, break with the belief in womans spirituality by
confirming her physical existence and acknowledging her mental capacities. According
to Gardner, in 1840 there were about three actors to each actress, two to one in 1851
and by 1891 actresses were just in the majority (8). That growing increase in the
number of actresses in the nineteenth century reflects womans awareness of herself as a
human being who has the right to act in public life and contribute to cultural life. With
the female participation in the theatrical domain, the theatre ceases to be a traditional
mime and a cultural reproduction of sexual difference. It became womans space for
self-expression and a reformulation of a new subjectivity; it is the point where woman
got liberated from the domestic sphere and was inscribed within a new system of
exhibitionism and public confrontation with a male audience. It was on the stage that
actresses blurred the border between characters and their own persons, performance
and reality to be representative of their own liberated sex. Fuller expalins the political
motives behind womans invasion of public spaces, saying: As to her home, she is not
likely to leave it more than she now does for balls, theatres, meetings for promoting
missionsin hope of an animation of her existence (19). She also admits the mental
and physical talent of such stage women:
As to the possibility of her filling with grace and dignity, any such position, we should
think those who had seen the great actresses, and heard the Quaker preachers of
modern times, would not doubt, that woman can express publicly the fullness of
thought and creation, without losing any of the peculiar beauty of her sex. What can
pollute and tarnish is to act thus from any motive except that something needs to be
said or done. Women could take part in the processions, the songs, the dances of old
religion, no one fancied their delicacy was impaired by appearing in public for such a
cause. (19)
In order to show her objection to mans exploitation and consumption of her body at
home; woman made an investment of her own body in public life; she tended to prove
that she alone had power over her body. In her essay Female daredevils, Helen Day
showed how woman performed publicly using her body, as a daredevil, parachutist,
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42
balloonist. In the nineteenth century, female daredevilry was depicted in press reporting,
pictorial representation and public reception. Woman participated in public shows and
invaded the entertaining theatres which were restricted to men. Woman worked as a
balloonist and parachutist where she launched large gas balloons and performed a
trapeze act. Some Victorian women followed the path of the French aeronaut Sophie
Blanchard1 like the British Dolly Shepherd or Britains Queen of the air as she was
named who ballooned in spectacular feats. The main challenge for these women who
used their bodies to perform spectacles in space was the bold confrontation of death.
Female parachutists deconstructed the belief in the superior power of man and defied
the notion of womans physical weakness. They used their bodies to defy culture and
nature since they exposed themselves to the danger of unpredictable wind and fire,
violent landings, just to prove that their physical capacities is not unlike those of men.
Woman also employed her body to perform entertaining spectacles; circus female
performers leaped from buildings, walked tightropes, played tricks. During that period
of time, showwomen drew many male spectators because of their extraordinary
spectacles. Some famous female stars performed shows that were thought impossible
for women because they required a high degree of courage, strength and virility. Signora
Josephine Giradelli was a well-known exhibitionist who held boiling oil in her mouth
and hands in addition to Bess Houdini who worked in the circus with her husband
Harry. May Wirth was also a famous equestrian known for her somersaults and other
stunts while riding a rushing horse. There were similarly tightrope walkers like the
woman who went by the name of the Female Blondin; she challengingly attempted to
cross the river from Battersea to Cremorne in August 1861. Through the performance
of such difficult tasks which were thought to belong to the arena of man, woman
attempts to speak her body, to use it as point of strength rather than of weakness as it
used to be. Her power lied not only in the strength of her muscles but also in her
struggle for dignity. She preferred to die rather than live as an object; she faced death so
as to escape death-in-life.
Parachuting, performing fireworks, stunts and death-deying feats were not the only ways
to show that woman is equal to man and able to be as strong and as liberated as him.
Acting was also a means to subvert the sexual division of roles and disturb the
patriarchal social order where women appeared in male clothing to act travesty roles.
Actresses mockingly adopt masculinity by borrowing the male body and male costumes;
they replaced male actors and fought heroically on the stage. Charlotte Cushman played
Hamlet in 1851 in the American theatre while Alice Marriott played the same role in in
1861 in the English theatre. In such roles, woman deliberately concealed her female
body under a male dress first to deconstruct the contradictory binarism of sexual
subject/ object and second to show that she can successfully replace man and perform
his role not only on the stage but also in life. The theatre thus became a public space
where a woman could subvert the prevailing male hegemony. It offered a place from
Sophie Blanchard was the first woman to work as a professional balloonist at the end of the eighteenth
century and beginning of the nineteenth century; she used to balloon in official festivals with Napoleon
Bonaparte.
1
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43
The New Woman was challenging in her appearance and behavior because she was not
satisfied with the social categorization of sexes. She wanted to subvert rules and go
against conventions through her defiance of the dress code. Yet she might also choose a
masculine style while practicing prostitution to show that she is as free as man in
manipulating her body. She might have preferred prostitution over other forms of sex
slavery because she at least had a minimum of freedom in monitoring her body as
opposed to married women who were caught in the compulsory aspect of marriage and
heterosexuality. She felt more in possession of her body whether through the choice of
her male partners or even through the overthrow of heterosexism in favor of
lesbianism. In same-sex relationship, women disregarded the presence of men and
sometimes borrowed a masculine behavior. Pullen argues that the masculine style of the
New Woman as a feminist or as a prostitute was not accepted by society: the spectre of
the masculine woman either the feminist who took dress reform to the extreme and
adopted male clothes or the prostitute who eroticized the female body with close-fitting
pants, hats and other accroutrements of masculine style alarmed and aroused outright
hostility (120).
Woman used the theatre institution to deconstruct the patriarchal premises not only by
adopting masculinity but also by using femininity. Certain performers employed their
bodies in public exhibitions to challenge the notion of the female sacred body which
had to move within the borders of the private sphere and be the possession of the
husband. The stage allowed women to get liberated from the home and husband and let
the body move freely in a larger space to manipulate its viewers. The broadest
spectrum of performing specialties that comes under the rubric of actor, as the term
was colloquially understood in the nineteenth century, states Davis, including, in other
words, specialties that range from tragedienne to danseuse, marionette manipulator to
serio vocalist, Negro comedian to patentee, and equestrian artiste to heavy villain (40).
Educated, self-regulating and respectable female entertainers invaded the theatre to
mark the rise of the Victorian actress. Woman sought to establish a space in which live
performance could be elevated as a virtuous and viable entertainment for a middle
class of both sexes (Busze5).
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44
Some actresses like Jenny Lind and the Italian Adelaide Ristori tended to construct a
favorable image of a performers talents (their on and off screen star images were in
accord with an ideal of the virtuous female performer). While these actresses denied a
sexualized identity and rejected the image of the actress/courtesan by asserting the
potential of the true woman to exist in the sphere of the theatre as in the home
(Buszek 9-10), others preferred to politicize sexuality by exposing their femininity in
public like singers, dancers or burlesque actresses.
There were leading singing women in opera who made their debut in public and savored
the ecstasy when the cage door of Victorian domesticity was wide. In her article The
Voice of Freedom: Images of the Prima Donna, Susan Rutherford argues that the voice
of prima donna is a voice of freedom and a symbol of liberation; in the fin-de-sicle, the
prima donna is claimed as a positive expression of female independence, individuality
and artistry. Similarly, Geraldine Harris gives the example of the French performer
Yvette Gilbert who functioned as a sign of the liberal woman. She performed in
London and most of her chansons were written in Parisian slang but her presence was
successful and attractive (not comprehensible for the audience). Her attractiveness
emanated from her strong voice and physical presence on the stage, thus from her body.
Like Yvette, there were American and British female performers that stood for womans
emancipation from the private sphere like the American actress and singer Lillian
Russell, one of the most famous performers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. She was known for her beauty and style as well as for her voice and stage
presence. Jenny Lind was also a Swedish opera singer and one of the most highly
regarded performers of the nineteenth century. She was known for her performances in
soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily popular
concert tour of America beginning in 1850. Nineteenth-century female singers raised the
voice of freedom in public spaces to cry out for the liberation of woman and the release
of her body from domestic exploitation.
In addition to singing, dancing was a more expressive way to release womans body
through its free movement and public exposure. Ballroom dancing spiked in popularity
in the U.S.A. during the mid-nineteenth century, roused by increasing interest in
gendered etiquette and division of male and female domestic space. Dance became a
means to celebrate the female body which was rejected as a source of diseases, suffering
and death. Dance was an expression of celebratory physicality, showing openness to life,
self-recognition self-valuing and more confidence in ones ability to create. Dance
scripts the movement of the body, limiting it to a particular set of gendered movements,
yet it also encourages the body to break free of those limits by inducing a feeling of
euphoria and freedom. For most of nineteenth-century dancers, dancing became a way
to challenge patriarchal strictures as well as to align themselves with positive views of
heredity, race, and nature. Rejecting the classical ideas of order, harmony and balance,
dancers wanted the freedom to express themselves in a spontaneous and individual way;
to break with culture, they turned to nature as a source of inspiration. By the 1840s,
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great ballet stars like Marie Taglioni1 who danced in Paris, St Petersburg, London and
Italy or Fanny Elssler2 who toured North America cultivated the attention of
enthusiastic audiences. Clara Webster was the first great English ballerina in addition to
Lola Montez and Louise Farebrother. The most familiar dancing figure in this period
was Salome who became inscribed into late-Victorian debates about aestheticism,
sexuality, and gender roles. For women, systems of control included items of dress as
well as sexual acts such as rape and physical abuse as a forced dance. In ballrooms, they
sought to escape these ways of control by dressing en travestie and performing a free
movement of the body as an expression of freedom both on and off the dance floor.
Womens bodies could be thus sites of both oppression and rebellion and it was only
through art as a part of the cultural communication system that women could
overthrow the patterns of dominance in society.
Women explored another genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in
Victorian England and the New York theatre which was the burlesque or what was
sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza. It was a type of parody which adopted a
famous opera or play or ballet into a comic musical play while mocking the theatrical
and musical conventions of the original work. Dance, staging, costumes played an
important part in extravaganzas. Many of the male roles were played by actresses as
breeches roles so as to expose their bodies and physical charms. The first woman actormanager in London was Eliza Vestris who managed the Olympic Theatre in 1830 where
she presented a program of burlesques. Famous for her shapely legs, she was a singer
and dancer of some repute. Womans public display and feminized spectacles dominated
stages where actresses with dyed blonde hair and shockingly revealing dresses animated
the theatres. The appeal of the British blondes3 lay in their legs and golden hair. There
was a boom of burlesque-based performances and leg show productions in the USA
resulting in a social agitation and questions about how woman should be allowed to act
on the stage and how femininity could be represented. The burlesque theatre
represents a space in which a self-aware female sexuality is not only imaged but
deemed appropriate for display in a societal atmosphere which has, since the genres
rise, largely viewed such blatant displays of female sexuality as appropriate only for
private, guarded consumption if not downright threatening and therefore taboo
(Buszek 3).
Bowdy burlesque actresses shifted the personae from the stage to mass media and
popular culture through the appearance of the early carte de visite pin-ups in the mid1Marie
Taglioni was an Italian/ Swedish ballet dancer of the romantic ballet era, born in 1804 and died in
1884. She made her debut with the Paris opera in 1827.
2 Fanny Elssler was an Austrian dancer, born in 1810 and died in 1884 when her dress caught fire on the
stage. She made her debuts in Berlin in 1830, London in 1833 and Paris in 1834. Her rival was Marie
Taglioni. Yet she made a great contribution to the development of the classical ballet.
3 The British Blondes is the burlesque troupe of the English dancer, actress and theatrical producer
Lydia Thompson. The latter introduced Victorian burlesque to New York with her troupe in 1868. The
audience was then introduced to a rowdy English version of the burlesque where women in masculine
clothes playing mens roles. The actresses in Lydias female troupe dressed in scanty costumes that
showed their legs to the audience while including crossed-dressing roles.
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nineteenth century. The Photographic Society was formed in London in 1853 as a major
technological breakthrough: Discovered on the threshold of the Queens reign,
photography is the most characteristic of Victorian media: it brought together science
and art in a novel way, was realistic, inescapably contemporary, incipiently democratic,
and promised victory over the time (Gilmour 218). Thus The burlesque tradition
benefited from that technology to produce photographic pin-ups including exhibitionist
poses of stars like those of Adah Isaacs Menken. Such photographs make female
performers explore pointedly sexual roles both on and off stage; Buszek explains the
phenomenon, stating: Most striking are the ways in which nineteenth-century
photographic imagery - when created to represent and promote specifically sexualized
theatrical identities outside of the contained space of the theatre was constructed (2).
Erotic pin-ups and pornographic photographs promoted a sexual imagery outside the
sphere of the theatre and marked womans invasion of public streets and popular
magazines as a reaction to her former confinement within a limited private space.
Buszek exposes the situation from a historical and psychological point of view, saying:
What resulted from burlesque peformers use of the pin-up genre was a decontainment of their unstable, sexualized performances from a specific physical site and
the establishment of the pin-up as a genre defined by the manipulation of its media and
viewers by its awarish or sexually self- aware, representational subjects (Buszek 2).
That awareness of ones sexuality could be detected in the performative quality and
artificial construction of sexual identity. Performances proved to be self-consciously
erotic, showing women taking pleasure in their own beauty and there was often a
sexual gaze implied in [the performers] pictorial representation (Helen 144).
Therefore, while performing femininity and self-conscious sexuality, such burlesque
performers created fantasy characters for their clients so as to manipulate them ad exert
power over them.
Most of nineteenth-century female performers sought to politicize sexuality and use
their bodies as a means of power. The conscious representations of female sexuality can
be read as subversion of tradition and rules or as M.G. Lord says: an unruly force that
promises to unsettle social conventions, and a radical political act (qtd. in Buszek 3).
Sexual self- awareness and the use of the female body in public aimed at disrupting
conventional feminine ideal, disturbing the social rules of class and gender and
translating the delight in promoting shockingly subversive public identity. such
expressive erotic performances were transgressive feminist acts which served at breaking
womans silence and exploring sexuality as a taboo in public. The challenge of womans
sexual display was that it launched the public debate on taboo subjects; the desire to
speak out openly on sexual matters at a time when this was still considered highly
problematic at authoritative levels was radical indeed (Morgan 211). The Victorian
author Ellice Hopkins called for public discussions on sexuality and allowed herself to
speak about prostitution, sexual non-reciprocity in marriage and celebration of marital
sex. Although she was herself a purist, she accused the Anglican church of contributing
to the nineteenth-century climate because of keeping silent on the matter. Womans
public sexual exposure was the result of the suppression of female sexuality in the
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nineteenth century where women were told to repress sexual desire and bodily
sensation. In Part One in The History of Sexuality, Foucault argues that since the
nineteenth century, we have repressed our natural sexual desire and speaks of the
repressive hypothesis which holds that through the European history, people moved
from a free expression about sex and sexuality to a period of sexual repression where
sex was treated as a private or an extra-marital matter. He considers prostitution and
psychiatry as outlets of confession to release the repressed sexual feeling. In this
context, we may as well think of female performance and public display as a form of
releasing a suppressed sexuality.
3. Limitations of Womans Public Exposure
Womans theatrical reaction to the oppression exerted on her sex was not accepted by
society but was rather seen as a form of hysteria and a dangerous sign of immorality.
There was a tension about nineteenth-century burlesque, theatre, fashion and female
sexuality. Society started to feel the threat of female public performance, especially when
it continued to resonate both on and off stage. Davis expresses the worlds view about
actresses, saying: Women performers defied ideas of passive middle-class femininity
and personified active self-sufficiency. Their visibility and notoriety in the public realm
led to persistent and empirically unfounded prejudices and very real sexual dangers in
their work places (xiv). Since the Victorian age, the identity of the female performer
had fit into the category of the prostitute. Thus performers in general were not seen as
intellectual feminists who were implicated in a political process, but considered instead
as whores or public women ready for any sexual proposition. these theatrical women
lost the respect of people; they had already subverted normal expectations of female
behavior often at the expense of their own reputation and social position (Gardner
12). Victorians disapproved of the stage as an appropriate working sphere for women;
that is why the stereotype of the actress and courtesan became confused. Performers
failed to cultivate respectability in the Victorian era because they were thought to depart
from social values and religious mores in a radical or queer way. They were deprived of
a stable family life because if ever they accepted to marry, they would be humiliated by
their husbands: Woe to such a woman who finds herself linked to such a man in bonds
too close. It is the cruellest of errors. He will detest her with all the bitterness of
wounded self-love. He will take the whole prejudice of manhood upon himself. Such
women are the old actresses, the songsters (Fuller 67). A man could not accept a public
woman to be his wife and mother of his children; he equated her with immorality and
impurity.
There were different attempts to stop the stream of womans public appearance and
physical exposure. These alarming social changes brought with them a desire to
categorize and classify social phenomena in an attempt to impose order on an unruly
world. The challenge to traditional social roles raised by women was met with resistance
by conservative factions that feared these changes. The U.S. puritanical origins held
sway over the perception of performance and its immorality. Between 1820 and 1860 a
range of printed material promoted and prescribed the cult of True Womanhood,
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instilling feminine ideals through public lectures and sermons. Murphy surveyed the
period which witnessed this moral religious and literary stream: Strong antitheatrical
attitudes, based on religious opposition to acting and cultural opposition to elite art
formsTo counter antitheatricalism, or perhaps merely to address unsophisticated
audiences, writers of early American comedies assume a highly didactic tone and focus
closely on issues of national identity (3). Attempts from within the theatre were also
done in order to maim womans movement to freedom. The dangerous factor which
marred womans search for freedom and distorted the political dimension of their quest
was the use of actresses against themselves. While some dramatists like Shaw and Barker
created idealized, independent, self-determining women such as Vivie Warren in Mrs
Warrens Profession and Marion Yates in The Madras House, others, whether male or
female, preserved the antagonistic iconography of the dominant ideology in their
writings because they either could not cope with the changes or were passive responsive
to the reactionary moral crusades, or even aspired for material gain. Fashion was written
by the playwright Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt to provide a more conservative vision of
American womanhood; it seemed to oppose womans freedom through its idealization
of feminine passivity and reproduction of womans confinement within domestic
scenes. Moreover, plays like Sydney Grundys New Woman, Pineros The Amazons, Henry
Arthur Joness The Case of Bebellious Susan used actresses to perform roles going against
womans liberation. So actresses at this level were effacing themselves and putting an
end to their own freedom; they could be seen as self-destructive.
It is true that the rise of capitalism motivated women to move towards the working
places, yet it might also be the reason behind their fall into another cycle of passivity.
The aspiration for material gain might overcome the longing for freedom especially
within the theatre industry. If woman started to use her body in the nineteenth century
for her new challenging project, she risked to be used for financial goals. The aims of
her public exposure were the reinforcement of her human existence, self-recognition
and reconstruction of a new subjectivity. However, the political aspect of the body
could be absorbed within the new institutionalization of live entertainment shows. If the
female body would be considered as a tool to make money, women would lose the war
by relapsing into another form of objectification. In 1860, Laura Keene a female
playwright and theatre manager, sought to draw larger audiences to her womens plays
to legitimate theatrical spaces in the United States away from the working-class
burlesque halls and concert saloons. Furthermore, the creation of plays characterized by
social and moral transgressiveness like Lord Byrons Mazeppa, the Black Crook showing
undressed performers at Niblos Garden could be seen as new a way of exploiting the
female body in order to cultivate profit. Female performers might be alienated from the
political process of their physical exposure to become recaptured into a new system of
exploitation; the result then would be worse than the former situation because women
were now consciously led to their misfortune. Add to that, actresses calling cards
conceived as inexpensive portraits for the bourgeoisie, photostudios and print stores
were a trap used by capitalism in collaboration with patriarchy to manipulate women.
Bell exposes the danger behind womans public performance: Performance becomes
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the principal, and possibly the only, activity in a culture, where the self and the reality
upon which it depends become removed from their earlier autonomy by the physical
liberations of the new technology and by the glittering world of choice offered by
publicity (Bell 144). Thus the performer risks losing her real self and being a prey to
rising capitalist institutions.
Female performers freely used their bodies in a public way to escape mans humiliation
and exploitation in private terms. Instead of letting husbands consume their bodies in a
material and moral way, performers chose to display their bodies to other men so as to
show that their bodies were theirs and that they were free to expose them the way and
to whom they liked. However, that theory is double-edged since it presents performers
to the risk of being consumed once again by the audience. If we consider the designed
role of the audience, we may say that the latter determines the success of the
performance and thus constitutes a judgmental position that shows absorption of stage
performers. Kruger defines the role of the audience, saying: The audience the people
who watch the show as well as their individual and collective reactions to it plays a
crucial role in validating certain practices as legitimate theatre theatre spectatorship is
inevitably social as well as aesthetic. The character and composition of the audience
confirm or challenge the hegemony of particular forms of performance (62). The
limitation of womans freedom at this level lies in her possession once again by
individual male spectators who sit silently in the protective darkness and fulfill their
role as sanctioned voyeurswe appear as audience, erasing distinctions between play
and reality (Freedman 79). The female performer thus might appear passive because
she is not the desiring eye but the blinded eye that is gazed over and consumed by the
other. Freedman expresses this idea while speaking about the male auditorium in
cinema: Since the male is traditionally envisioned as the bearer of the gaze, the woman
represented as the fetished object of the gazethe classic cinematic gaze splits us into
male (voyeur) and female (exhibitionist) (84).
Nevertheless, the cinema is different from the theatre owing to the live aspect of
performances and the possibility of a direct interaction between the performer and her
spectators. In cinema, the actress is more passive because of the absence of a flesh-andblood audience while in the theatre, the actress actively reacts to the positive
reinforcement of the audience such as collective applause or encouraging shouting.
The theatrical performer is freer and more active within the live atmosphere of the
theatre than the cinema actor. She has the opportunity to return the speactators look
and be thus a consuming subject rather than consumed object. She can easily reverse the
game and be the real manipulator of her audience. Freedman encourages the mastery of
ones gaze on the stage: we seek in theatre that moment when our looking is no longer
a looking (as in film), but a being seen, a return of the look by the mirror image which
denies the process (99). Freedman asks for the actresss constitutive gaze which
annihilates the male absorbing gaze through her awareness that she is watched over.
Freedman defines the gaze as the discovery that one is seen that ones look is always
purloined by the other (101). So the female performer should possess an active gaze
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which aims at subordinating and manipulating her male audience. Moreover the actress
may ignore the male gaze thinking that it is directed to another subjectivity and not to
her real person. Freedman argues that theatres masks announce that the I is always
already another; its characters assure us of their displacement (102). Yet this is relative
because the star is the object of constant attention; people are encouraged,
furthermore, to see every gesture, vocal mannerism, and detail of dress as an aspect of a
unique individuality rather than as components of a performance role (Leith &
Myerson 7). Thus womans use of her body in public is indeed controversial since it may
carry her to dangerous lengths and may throw her into the same process of
objectification and exploitation, but everything depends on the performers primary
motives and personal convictions.
4. Conclusion
If woman decided to use her female body in public speeches, spectacles, entertaining
activities or acting in the nineteenth century, it was because she sought a way to break
her silence and change her body from a source of suffering and humiliation to a means
of expression and liberation. She chose to invade public spaces and be mans rival so as
to invalidate patriarchal premises about the female body. The theatre was an appropriate
physical space for woman to speak since it gathers all categories of people and thus
functions as a cultural center which allows womans voice to echo everywhere. It was
also a symbolic space from which woman cried out for her rights as a human being; it
stands for the artificial aspect of gender and the theatrical representation of difference.
It was used by the nineteenth-century woman to overthrow the cultural obligation that
individuals must line up to an opposition. The theatre is a carefully chosen space by
women to express herself, manifest herself publicly and confirms her subjectivity. She
aimed at breaking with the patriarchal system which confined her to the private sphere
and assigned man as her superior and boss. Since woman was manipulated because of
her biology, she relied on her biology to manipulate man and reverse the whole cultural
process. Yet there were some limitations which might handicap her quest like capitalism
and auditorium. A female performer should not be confined to the materialistic ends of
the entertaining industry and should confidently avoid the male gaze not to fall once
again victim to exploiting systems. She could recapture her subjectivity through her
active presence on the stage and prudent dealing with capitalist institutions.
References
Mary, Ellmann (1968) : Thinking about Women, New york: Harcourt.
Michel, Foucault (1979): The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 : An Introduction, London: Allen
Lane.
Margaret, Fuller (1845) : Woman in the Nineteenth Century, New York: Greeley & McElarath.
Robin, Gilmour (1993): The Victorian Period: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English
Literature, Longman Group.
Dick Leith and George Myerson (1989): The Power of Address, Routledge.
J.S. Mill (1869): The subjection of women, London : Longmans.
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Jean-Paul Truc1
(Rdacteur en Chef de la Revue Quadrature)
.
.
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Un autre cas de figure trs simple, o le thorme se vrifie facilement est celui o la
courbe est un cercle de centre O et de rayon R , parcouru par une corde AB . Dans ce
cas, nous pouvons traiter le cas le plus gnral. Soit C le point de division tel que
AC a et CB b (figure 3). Un calcul lmentaire de la puissance du point C par
rapport au cercle, effectu de deux manires diffrentes, en utilisant la corde AB
comme scante, puis le diamtre portant OC , nous donne :
P (C )
CA CB
ab
P (C ) ( R OC )( R OC ) OC 2 R 2
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54
1
2
r ( ) quand langle varie de , sans que le segment possde une extrmit fixe (cf.
figure 4).
Holditch se place implicitement dans la situation dcrite par la figure 5. Il suppose que la
corde AB se dplace en restant tangente une courbe ( E ) (lenveloppe des cordes) se
trouvant lintrieur du domaine limit par ( ) , sans mentionner toutefois que ( ) est
convexe. La convexit de la courbe ferme nest pas ncessaire pour que le rsultat soit
valide, mais elle permet daffirmer que lindice de rotation de la courbe est gal 1 . Il
note Q le point de contact entre la corde et ( E ) et il dsigne par r la distance r AQ .
On note P le point de la corde tel que AP a et PB b (voir figure 5). Holditch
commence par affirmer que les aires balayes dans le mouvement de la corde AB autour
de ( ) par les trois segments AQ , BQ et QP sont respectivement donnes par les
intgrales :
1 2 2
1 2
1 2
2
r
d
(
a
r
)
d
(a r ) 2 d
2
3
0
0
0
2
2
2
Il est clair que I1 I 2 , car les segments AQ et BQ balayent la mme surface, comprise
I1
rd (a b) (1)
Comme la diffrence des aires A cherche est gale laire balaye par le segment
QB diminue de celle balaye par le segment QP , nous avons :
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55
A I 2 I3 b(2a b) b rd
0
Toutefois cette preuve prsente des lacunes certaines : tout dabord la configuration de
la figure 5 est loin de correspondre au cas le plus gnral, dautre part la formule de
calcul intgral utilise est certes facile prouver quand lune des extrmits du segment
reste fixe lorigine O , mais il en est tout autrement de la gnralisation de ce rsultat
utilise par Holditch, si lon veut le prouver rigoureusement. Ce nest quen 1959 que le
physicien armnien Mamikon Mnatsakanian ([14]) a jug ncessaire den donner une
preuve rigoureuse pour nos critres actuels.
Dans le trait de Bertand [3], en 1870, puis surtout dans celui de de la Valle Poussin en
1914 [15], la dmonstration se rapproche encore un peu plus de nos standards
contemporains, avec lintroduction de lintgrale curviligne. De nombreux
mathmaticiens travaillent sur ce sujet, et, en assujetissant les extrmits A , B dcrire
deux courbes distinctes (voir figure 6), renouvellent des dmonstrations de calcul daire
sur des courbes classiques.
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sens plus collective: Le chercheur doit avancer, sur les paules des gants1, ou de ses
confrres, faire confiance la construction collective de la communaut mathmatique.
Il ne peut plus tout vrifier avec rigueur, car il doit aussi se hter vers son but, mais pour
le cur de son rsultat, il doit videmment sobliger une grande honntet
intellectuelle qui va de pair avec la rigueur mathmatique. Cette dmarche actuelle est
remarquablement dcrite dans le dernier ouvrage de Cdric Villani ([17]), Thorme vivant.
2. Dans lenseignement
Si dans le domaine de la recherche mathmatique, lexigence de rigueur semble tout
fait bnfique, nous avons un point de vue plus partag en ce qui concerne son
influence dans lenseignement des mathmatiques. Certes, les horaires de mathmatiques
en premire et terminale S ont sensiblement diminu, mais cela nexplique pas tout et il
faudrait sans doute introduire plus tt dans les programmes des principes rigoureux et
logiques de dmonstration, principes qui ont t un peu perdus de vue, au profit
dapproches de dcouvertes et dactivits. Il en rsulte par exemple une difficult faire
rdiger correctement un travail crit rigoureux. La rencontre avec ces exigences, trop
tardive, intervient pour la plupart des lves en terminale et en mathmatiques
suprieures ou L1. Il peut y avoir alors une relle difficult assimiler toutes les rgles
du discours mathmatique rigoureux et cela peut conduire la saturation. Cest comme
si dans ltude dune langue, la grammaire prennait soudain toute la place et quil ne
restait plus de temps pour parler, cest dire ici faire des maths.
La rigueur ne saurait donc tre le seul objectif, car alors, lattitude de lenseignant peut
vite devenir castratrice, sil arrte par exemple un lve dans lexpos de sa solution,
sous prtexte que certaines choses ne sont pas licites, ou bien parce quil ny a pas
tous les garde-fous rituels, les , etc.
On a ainsi pu voir rcemment, sur une liste de diffusion concernant les enseignants de
classes prparatoires, des collgues sinterroger longuement sur la notation ou
pour une fonction, ou sur la mthode consistant introduire
y
y
quation diffrentielle, et surtout se demander sil fallait autoriser cette pratique aux
tudiants. Le souci de rigueur ne devient-il pas ici celui dimposer une pense unique,
incompatible avec la diversit du cheminement mathmatique ?
Il serait souhaitable dinstaurer de temps autre en classe, la phase de recherche erratique,
chre Marc Legrand ([11]), o les mathmatiques cessent dtre le symbole mme de la
vrit, de la rigueur absolue, mais se prsentent davantage comme une construction erratique pour
comprendre, un moyen parmi dautres de donner du sens la ralit. Toutefois, cette mthode
chronophage doit notre avis tre rserve une utilisation bien contrle. Plutt
quune rigueur permanente et absolue, on peut envisager dans la classe des plages de
rigueur mathmatique, et des activits spcialement ddies, comme par exemple la
rdaction soigne dun devoir ou dun texte mathmatique. La rigueur doit tre prsente,
1
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58
mais sans brider ni dominer ltudiant. La formule de Carl Bender et Steven Orszag ([4])
We stress care but not rigor rsume parfaitement cette situation.
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59
ln( C )
ln(rad( ABC ))
Une valeur leve exprime que la solution A B C est hautement divisible. Cest
seulement une fois ce travail prparatoire accompli que lon peut noncer
rigoureusement la conjecture ABC de la manire suivante : Pour tout nombre suprieur
1 , il existe seulement un nombre fini de solutions ( A B C ) dont la puissance est suprieure . On
voit alors que cette conjecture exprime parfaitement la raret des solutions de lquation
linaire divisible par de grandes puissances.
la lumire de cet exemple, il apparat que, dans la pratique, vulgariser les
mathmatiques dune manire rigoureuse, est donc une tche difficile, voire impossible
dans une revue grand public. Aussi beaucoup dentre elles choisissent une solution
mixte, en dveloppant de manire plus rigoureuse certaines notions dans des encadrs,
et en livrant un texte un peu moins prcis, mais plus accessible dans leurs colonnes. Ceci
nous conduit la notion dhyperstructure, dont nous rappelons ci-dessous les
principaux constituants.
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Il est courant aujourdhui dans les grandes revues scientifiques de vulgarisation (La
Recherche, Sciences et Avenir, Sciences et Vie, en France) de voir des dossiers cibls sur un
sujet (par exemple, le boson de Higgs) se prsenter sous forme dune hyperstructure,
allant jusqu englober plusieurs articles sous plusieurs signatures, eux-mmes
accompagns dencadrs et dinfographie.
Lintrt est videmment daccrocher le public et de procurer plusieurs entres au
contenu au lecteur. En effet, ce dernier peut tre intress par un encadr, ou par un
schma explicatif lui paraissant accessible.
Nous allons maintenant nous recentrer sur les mathmatiques en terminant par
lexemple de la revue de mathmatiques Quadrature cre en 1989. Ce journal nest pas
proprement parler une revue de vulgarisation, puisquil demande dans beaucoup
darticles des comptences mathmatiques certaines son lectorat, mais pas non plus
une revue professionnelle de recherche. linstar de ces dernires, son processus de
fonctionnement est bas sur la soumission un comit de lecture et au peerreviewing, ce qui la diffrencie nettement des revues de vulgarisation.
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4. Conclusion
Aprs ce panorama, forcment incomplet de la rigueur dans les dmonstrations mathmatiques
dans la recherche, dans lenseignement et dans les revues de vulgarisation scientifique, il semble
clair que la rigueur est le plus souvent synonyme de progrs dans la dcouverte et surtout dans
lvolution des thormes. En effet un rsultat plus thoris et prcis est davantage susceptible
de sappliquer dans dautres domaines de la physique et des mathmatiques. Par contre,
enseignement et vulgarisation, sont des domaines o il conviendrait de temprer un excs de
rigueur en premire approche, pour faciliter la comprhension et la participation du public,
lecteurs ou tudiants. Une fois lintrt du lecteur et de ltudiant acquis, il sera alors temps, par
diverses manires (approfondissement, textes complmentaires dans le cas de lhyperstructure)
de recadrer les connaissances acquises dans un cadre scientifique plus rigoureux. Les moyens de
donner une information scientifique rigoureuse existent donc bien. Bien sr, ils ne pourront tre
efficaces que si lauteur est lui-mme un spcialiste, ou sil est paul par un scientifique
comptent qui pourra superviser larticle.
References
[1] Jean-Michel Adam et Gilles Lugrin, Lhyperstructure : un mode privilgi de
reprsentation des vnements scientifiques ?, Les carnets du Cediscor, 2000,
http://cediscor.revues.org/327.
[2] Arne Broman, Holditchs Theorem, Math. Mag. 3 (1981) 99-108.
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Page
64
Page
65
Said Bentajar
(Universit Mohammed V, Rabat)
Abstract Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair, as the formal founders of Informal Logic,
introduce a theory of evaluation of natural arguments, based on three criteria: Relevance,
Sufficiency and Acceptability. In this study, we analyze and evaluate this theory, by dealing
with each criterion. We found that these criteria have two fundamental problems: the first
is the need of an adequate philosophical establishment; the second is the difficulty of
applying it in the reality. For the principle of relevance, Johnson and Blair couldnt give us a
precise definition of it; and they couldnt outline how it could be applicable in the reality
since there are many kinds of acceptability. For the principle of sufficiency, there is a
problem of specifying of the conditions of sufficiency, and so that it needs always another
sub-principles and a philosophical establishment. This makes the application of the
principle incomplete since any possible use is debatable, and threatened by an infinite
regress. By using the principle of acceptability we are always threatened by the relativism,
because we attach the judgement of acceptability with the parties of dialogue. By this, we
need also to adopt a philosophical conception of rationality and reasonableness as a basis
of this principle.
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Toulmin, Stephen E. 2003. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 3.
Page
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3
Hamblin, Charles L. 2004. Fallacies. New Port: Vale Press. p. 236
4
Copi, I M., and C. Cohen. 1990. Introduction to Logic. 8th ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing
Company. p. 52
2
Page
72
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75
. " "
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" )INFORMAL LOGIC ( " "
" 1978 .
. 1964
" "
.
" "
.
" : " .1971
1 .
" "
" ."
" : .
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.
.
( )CARNEY & SCHEER, 1964 ( )KAHANE, 1971 ( & WALTON
.)WOODS, 1989
.
Johnson, Ralph H, and J Anthony Blair. 2002. Informal Logic and the Reconfiguration of Logic. In
Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical, ed. Dov M. Gabbay, John
Woods, Ralph H Johnson, and Ohlbach H. J., 339296. Amsterdam: elsevier. p. 355
2
Blair, J Anthony, and Ralph H Johnson. 1987. The Current State of Informal Logic. Informal Logic 9
(2). p. 148
Page
76
1 .
.
.
.
" "
( .)ETHICS -1 : :
-2
:
. -
" " -3 :
.
.
" 2. "
" " " "
3. ( )
.
Johnson, Ralph H, and J Anthony Blair. 2002. Informal Logic and the Reconfiguration of Logic, Op.
Cit. p. 357
2
Battersby, Mark E. 1989. Critical Thinking as Applied Epistemology: Relocating Critical Thinking in
the Philosophical Landscape. Informal Logic 11 (2). p. 94-95.
Ibid, n. 1.
Page
77
1 .
.
.
. 2
.
.
.
.
.
.
" "
.
.
. .
.
. .
.
.
Ibid, p. 95
McPeck, J. 1981. Critical thinking and education. New York: St. Martin's Press; Weinstein, M. 1990.
Towards a research agenda for informal logic and critical thinking. Informal Logic. 12. pp. 121-143.
Johnson, Ralph H. 2000. Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument. Mabwah/London: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc. p. 258.
Page
78
.
( )ATTITUDE OF MIND
.
1 . .
" "
-1 :
2 -3
.
2 .
.
.
.
.
.
. 3
.
.
.
.
.
"
" . 5
Blair, J Anthony. 2012. Grounwork in the Theory of Argumentaion: Selected Papers. Dordrecht, New York,
London: Springer. p. 48.
2
Ibid, p.48-49.
3
Hintikka, J. 1989. The role of logic in argument. The Monist. 72.; Woods, J. (1995). Fearful
Symmetry. In H. V. Hansen & R. Pinto (Eds.). Fallacies, Classical and Contemporary Readings (pp. 181-193).
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press; Massey, G. 1981. The Fallacy behind Fallacies.
Midwest Studies of Philosophy, 6, pp: 489-500.
4
Johnson, Op. Cit. p. 258.
Ibid, p. 259
Page
79
. .
.
.
.
.
.
2.
.
.
.
.
.
.
:
.
1
Ibid.
Weinstein, M. 1994. Informal logic and applied epistemology. In R. H. Johnson & J. A. Blair (Eds.),
New essays in informal logic (pp. 140-161). Windsor, ON: Informal Logic. p: 158.
2
Page
80
.
.
.
.
.
.
"
" 2.
. :
.
.
.
.
.
Barth, E M, and Erik C.W. Krabbe. 1982. From Axiom to Dialogue: A Philosophical Study of Logics and
Argumentation. New York - Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 14-19.
2
Johnson. Op Cit. p. 270
Page
81
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
.
.
" . "
.
.
. .
.
1977 " "
"" ")RELEVANCE (")SUFFICIENCY (
" ")ACCEPTABILITY ( .
( )
Kahane, H. 1971. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reasoning in Everyday Life. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, Thomas, S. N. 1973. Practical Reasoning in Natural Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.; Scriven, M. (1976). Reasoning. New York: McGraw-Hill.
2
Johnson, R. H., & Blair, J. A. (1977). Logical self-defense. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.; Govier, T.
(1985). A practical study of argument. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.; Freeman, J. B. 1988. Thinking logically.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Page
82
. .
.
.
-:)RELEVANCE (
.
:
" " " " .
.
.
.
"
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( ) .
.
.
.
.
. .
.
" "
.
.
.
.
.
Woods, J. 1994. Sunny prospects for relevance? In R. H. Johnson & J. A. Blair (Eds.), New Essays in
Informal Logic (pp. 82-92). Windsor, ON: Informal Logic. p:82.
2
Blair. Op Cit. p. 89.
Page
83
" 1 "
" ")TOPICAL RELEVANCE (
" " ")INTERNAL RELEVANCE ( ")DIALECTICAL RELEVANCE (
" ( ")AUDIENCE RELEVANCE .
2.
.
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-
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( )IRRELEVANT REASON
:
Johnson. Op Cit. p. 200.
Ibid.
Page
84
1
2
" -1 .
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:
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.
.
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:
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.
.
Johnson, Ralph H, and J Anthony Blair. 2006. Logical Self-Defense. New York: International Debate
Education Association. p. 67.
Page
85
:)AD BACULUM ( :
:
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:
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:
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.
.
1.
.2
.
1
Biro, J., & Siegel, H. (1991). Normativity, Argumentation and an Epistemic Theory of Fallacies. In F.
H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair, & C. A. Willard (Eds.), Argumentation: Across the Lines of
Discipline (pp. 33-45). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. p; 97-98.
2
Johnson, R. H., & Blair, J. A. (1994). Logical self-defense (U.S. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill; Govier, T.
(1987). Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation. Dordrecht: Foris.
Page
86
.
.
" ")WARRANT ( . " "
.
. :
-
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Page
87
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Page
88
- :)ACCEPTABILITY (
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.
.
. :
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.
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.
.
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Page
89
1
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.
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.
" : " " :
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.
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Ibid. p. 65
Page
90
" "
:
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.
.
.
.
.
:
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. .
.
.
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.
.3
. 4
1
Ibid. p. 78
Johnson. Op. Cit. p. 197.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
2
Page
91
" :
...
. 1 " . 2
.
.
. .3
" "
" "
. .
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.
.
:
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.
.
.
.
. 5
.
.
1
Page
92
Ibid. p. 195.
Ibid. p. 56.
3
Van Eemeren, Frans (Et al.). 1996. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical
Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. p.
179.
2
Page
93
" HASTY (
")CONCLUSION :
" -1 -2
:
. .
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. " .1
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.
.
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:
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Page
94
.
.1
.
.
.
.
.
.
.2
.
.
.
. 3
.
.
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.4
.
.
.
.
Page
95
.1
.
.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
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.
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.
.
.
.
.
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Ibid, p. 55.
Ibid, p. 57.
3
Ibid, p. 58.
4
Mcpeck, John E. 1984. The Evaluation of Critical Thinking Programs: Dangers and Dogmas. Informal
Logic 6 (2): 913. p. 9.
2
Page
96
.
"
.1"1986
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
( )... .
.
.
Page
97
:
: - . : .2000 . .1
. -
: - . .1998 . .2
.
: - .2 . .2000 . .3
.
4.
5.
Bermejo-Luque, Lilian. 2011. Giving Reasons: A Linguistic-Pragmatic. Dordrecht - New YorkLondon: Springer.
6.
Blair, J Anthony. 2012. Grounwork in the Theory of Argumentaion: Selected Papers. Dordrecht,
New York, London: Springer.
7.
8.
Biro, J., & Siegel, H. (1991). Normativity, Argumentation and an Epistemic Theory of
Fallacies. In F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair, & C. A. Willard (Eds.),
Argumentation: Across the Lines of Discipline (pp. 33-45). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. p; 97-98.
9.
10. Copi, I M., and C. Cohen. 1990. Introduction to Logic. 8th ed. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company.
11. Hamblin, Charles L. 2004. Fallacies. New Port: Vale Press.
12. Johnson, Ralph H. 2000. Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument.
Mabwah/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
13. Johnson, Ralph H, and J Anthony Blair. 2006. Logical Self-Defense. New York: International
Debate Education Association.
14. Johnson, Ralph H, and J Anthony Blair. 2002. Informal Logic and the Reconfiguration of
Logic. In Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical, ed.
Dov M. Gabbay, John Woods, Ralph H Johnson, and Ohlbach H. J., 339296. Amsterdam:
elsevier.
15. Blair, J Anthony, and Ralph H Johnson. 1987. The Current State of Informal Logic.
Informal Logic 9 (2).
16. Mcpeck, John E. 1984. The Evaluation of Critical Thinking Programs: Dangers and
Dogmas. Informal Logic 6 (2): 913.
Page
98
17. Tindale, Christopher W. 1999. Acts of Arguing: A Rhetorical Model of Argument. New York:
State University of New York Press.
18. Toulmin, Stephen E. 2003. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19. Van Eemeren, Frans (Et al.). 1996. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of
Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
20. Weinstein, M. 1994. Informal logic and applied epistemology. In R. H. Johnson & J. A.
Blair (Eds.), New essays in informal logic (pp. 140-161). Windsor, ON: Informal Logic.
21. Woods, J. 1994. Sunny prospects for relevance? In R. H. Johnson & J. A. Blair (Eds.),
New Essays in Informal Logic (pp. 82-92). Windsor, ON: Informal Logic
Page
99
Mika Suojanen
(University of Turku)
Abstract Experience has been described as a mental state with properties that it
represents and possesses. Nevertheless, the existence of experience as a mental
entity has been questioned by eliminative materialism, which states that everything
that goes on in the world is physical, and thus there are no mental states.
Experience can be analysed as a dependent entity known introspectively by living
subjects. However, when experience is necessary in order to be connected with the
environment and informed of its facts, it must also exist. However, a consequence
of Paul M. Churchlands theory is that empirical knowledge means something other
than knowledge based on experience.
.
.
.
. .
.
AL-MUKHATABAT JOURNAL, Issue 10/April 2014, Mika Suojanen : The Relationship Between
Empirical Knowledge and Experiences, pp. 100-110.
Page
100
Human knowledge about the external world implies experience; for example, I know
that there is a car in front of me because I am connected to it by sight and my present
state of mind is dependent on the existence of the car. In other words, the faculties of
the senses are the only means human beings have to understand external appearances,
that is, impressions about objects outside of their minds. This means that the car seems
to be responsible for its appearance in my visual field. Nevertheless, it is much more
challenging to identify experience than the object of experience because it can mean
different things; for example, experience can simply mean sensory experience, or it can
also include other mental entities such as sensation, imagination, emotion, or
hallucination, according to different philosophical schools. One is said to have an
experience when one is doing something. For example, one gains swimming experiences
by swimming and one gains art experiences by enjoying plays at the theatre. On the
other hand, introspection, or the investigation of ones own mental state, does not
reveal the essence and origin of experience: even the existence of experiences as mental
entities has been questioned by eliminative materialism (Churchland, 1984; Rorty, 1965;
Feyerabend, 1963a, 1963b). However, although eliminative materialism denies the
existence of experience as a mental entity, inner mental states do have a role in
judgment formation.
By knowing, I mean presenting true claims about something. That is, a claim is
knowledge if and only if a claim presents that a thing is the case and that thing truly is
the case. Scientific claims are said to be reliable because they are based on experience.
Of course, there are many cases proving that experience can mislead us. Nevertheless,
the main issue is whether experience always distorts our views about reality. For
example, if I state I have a headache, perceive a red dot, and grasp that four is more
than two, and someone asks how I know these things, then I may answer: by
introspection, I know my inner mental states; by external perception, I see outer beings
of an external world; and by intellect, I abstract universal truths. Cognition would justify
our claims about reality in a situation where we present them.
The aim of this paper is to explicate the existence and nature of experience, claiming
that empirical knowledge entails experiences. First, the arguments that Paul M.
Churchland made against the existence of experience in the context of mentality will be
evaluated. Second, Churchlands arguments will be questioned by an assessment that
they include unclear views about empirical knowledge: The basic idea is that the brain
represents the world by means of very high-dimensional activation vectors
(Churchland, 1992: 421). According to his argument, empirical knowledge is simply
based on neural computations of the brain, not on propositional attitudes. If the
meaning of sense experience is a neural process in a certain part of the cortex, why is
the external world like ones sense experience? This implication seems to include a
contradictionusing this logic, one could say a sensation-of-red is a neural process, not
an event on a surface of an external wall. Finally, we do have empirical knowledge of
reality beyond what is based on colour, sound, touch, or shape-experience. A
consequence of Churchlands theory is that brain states is the meaning of empirical
Page
101
knowledge. How a brain state mirrors and then informs someone about the facts in an
external world, however, is a question that is open to doubt.
A starting point in this kind of a study must be my own perspective, and I take it for
granted that I am able to gain knowledge of myself. This critique is based on basic
principles about logic and metaphysics, which I assume to be indubitable. A hypothesis
is that if something is demonstrated to be such and such by means of experience, from
that it follows necessarily that experiences exist. Churchlands (1992, 1988, 1981) theory
argues that this is not the case. According to him, empirical knowledge is not knowledge
based on mental entities, experience, belief, or memory, but brain processes. The
empirical hypothesis was also questioned by Paul K. Feyerabend (1969).
1. Churchlands Arguments against the Existence of Mental Experience
According to Patricia S. Churchland, neurophilosophy means that the mind and its
entities, such as experiences, fears, and thoughts, are explicated from the point of view
of brains. According to her, mind is brain. The arguments of Paul M. Churchland
against the existence of experience are based on the view that our conceptual
frameworks lead us to a false picture about human beings and the nature of the mind
and cognition. That is, theories of folk psychology make us suppose that the mind and
its entities exist and therefore see state of affairs wrongly, just as political ideologies
make us see society wrongly. Conceptual frameworks lead us to present untrue
perceptual claims. Because of these failings of current folk psychology, eliminative
materialism questions the mentality of experiences and the use of non-material
psychological concepts, rather than their physiological nature (Churchland, 1984: 4346;
1992: 420).
A more precise analysis of how we know mental entities would be as follows. One
knows a mental entity p if and only if:
1)
2)
3)
4)
p
one presents true claims about p
not-p one does not present true claims about p
p one presents true claims about p
Many believe in the existence of mental entities. Eliminative materialism denies the
existence of p.
One of the most powerful pieces of evidence for the existence of experiences is
introspection. This reveals our mental world in the same way as external perception
reveals a mind-independent external world (Martin, 2002: 378, 403-404, 413-418;
McDowell, 2007: 343-344, 347-349). By investigating ones inner mind, one is conscious
of mental entities such as images of sense experience, emotions and desires, and
thoughts and understanding. Churchland (1984: 47-48) aims to show that the argument
from introspection is mistaken.
Page
102
He argues that, in order to argue that our introspection discloses experiences, we must
presuppose that experience exists: the doctrine of folk psychology makes us assume
that introspection is a direct evidence of mental entities. That is, it makes us assume that
the introspection premise leads to the conclusion that experience exists. The argument
of folk psychology, according to Churchland, is as follows.
1) Introspection reveals directly pains, beliefs, desires, fears, experiences, and so
forth.
2) Therefore, pains, desires, fears, experiences exist. (Churchland, 1984: 47)
A conceptual framework where introspective judgment is expressed presupposes a
conclusion, or the existence of mental entities. Churchland even describes it as a fact
that all observation occurs within some sort of conceptual framework (Churchland,
1984: 4748; 1988: 167, 168). The traditional system of folk psychology includes the
existence of experience. Churchland may be right that the argument from introspection
pre-assumes its existence.
From Churchlands view, however, it follows that an implication of Empirical
knowledge based on experience necessarily implies the existence of experience means
that experience is necessarily a non-material entity. We will return to the issue later in
the next chapter.
The second argument against the existence of experiences suggests that a new and
superior theory has dismissed mental entities because mental concepts lack a point of
reference. This argument suggests that we need to perceive psychological phenomena
with new eyes. Churchland (1984: 43, 45) states that the concepts of folk psychology
cannot be reduced to the concepts of theoretical neuroscience, because a traditional
psychological framework is a false and radically misleading conception of the causes of
human behaviour and the nature of cognitive activity.
His idea seems to be that the old theory A includes presuppositions that entities called
p, q, and s exist. This theory A is a form of perceptual judgment: One perceives
phenomenon p and perceives that a phenomenon is p. Then, the new theory B is
realized. This presents that entities p, q, and s do not exist. The presuppositions of the
old theory A that there are entities called p, q, and s cannot be reduced to the new
theory B. The entities p, q, and s are eliminated from the new theory B. People will
perceive phenomena with new eyes under the new superior theory B, which has
replaced the old theory A over time. (Churchland, 1981: 67, 72, 84-85; 1984: 43-47;
1985: 9-12, 16, 17) Chuchlands argument may be reconstructed as follows.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Page
103
One of Churchlands examples is a case of the turning sphere. His idea is simply that
perception is theory-laden. This means that theoretical frameworks affect ones
perceptual process, even in early processing. That is to say, perception is part of the
higher cognitive process and it affects what one perceives. Ancient and medieval people,
says Churchland, would insist that they could see the starry sphere of the heavens, and
how it turns around an axis through Polaris. How can anybody doubt the existence of
what everyone can observe with their own eyes? He continues: In the end, however, we
learned to reinterpret our visual experience of the night sky within a very different
conceptual framework, and the turning sphere evaporated. The same reinterpretation
occurred to witches or psychotic persons because modern theories of mental
dysfunction led to the elimination of witches from our serious ontology, and he argues
that the concepts of folk psychology await a similar fate. (Churchland, 1984: 44, 47) I
would say that ancient and modern persons did not believe in and then denied the
existence of celestial bodies, but explained their behaviour differently. When comparing
mental entities with the objects of an external world, it seems that the analogue is not
true: just as visual experience informs someone about the objects of an external world,
introspection informs someone about the entities that exist in our inner realm. Different
conceptual frameworks may badly misrepresent observed phenomena, as Churchland
rightly explains, but this does not mean that these phenomena necessarily do not exist.
Churchlands thinking here seems to be as follows (1984: 44-45). The progress of
neuroscience predicts that concepts of mental statessensation, fear, memory,
perception, sleep, etc. will disappear from scientific vocabulary. It is possible that they
will also disappear from everyday use. A consequence of Churchlands theory is that
empirical knowledge does not imply experience as a mental entity, because mental
entities would not exist. According to this consequence, empirical knowledge does not
identify with knowledge based on subjective experience. We will return to this
relationship between empirical knowledge and experience later.
In the next chapter, positive accounts of experience will be presented. These accounts
argue that if scientific and everyday knowledge is based on experience, experience must
exist.
2. Necessity of Experience
We rely on scientific claims because their basis is experience. A claim for the existence
of experiences may be followed from a claim that a complete account of the physiology
of human beings leaves their subjective experiences and phenomenal properties out.
These entities cannot be analysed in materialistic concepts (Nagel, 1974; Jackson, 1986).
The argument for the existence of mental entities may be presented as follows.
1) I directly know private entities that appear through experiencing them
2) I do not directly know material processes
3) Knowledge is not equal to material processes
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4) Thus, from Leibnizs law, to know private entities that appear through
experiencing them is not equal to material processes (from 1, 2, 3)
What I know is the existence of these entities in my mind. That is, I can talk about the
flow of thoughts and sensations that are mental processes, that is, subjective
experiences.
Experience and experienced things are in causal connection. A counter-factual analysis
shows this. If a person has never dived or gone to the theatre, he or she has no diving
or theatre experiences. However, different persons can have different experiences about
the same thing.
Every experience is dependent on the subject experiencing that event and feeling it
occur. This means that an experience in particular cannot exist without a subject, but the
same does not apply vice versa. For example, if an experience E does not exist, it does
not follow that there is not a subject S: for example, if Jack feels no headache now, the
absence of a headache does not mean the absence of Jack. However, Jacks headache
implies the existence of a subject who feels that headache, and that subject is necessarily
Jack. That is, Jane cannot have Jacks headache because they are two distinct persons, a
woman and a man. The same experience cannot move from one subject to another.
Nevertheless, after all, it is possible to give some sort of a definition of experience: it is
an inner feeling of the effect of some other entity on oneself. For example, when one
feels warm in the sunshine, it seems as if the sun is the cause of this feeling of warmth
and of the visual content of sun-experience in ones mind. Because we have experience
of sunshine, we assume that the claims There is a sun and the sun is a light source are
true.
It has been argued that we can individuate an experience by describing its modality and
content for example, a visual sun-experience (modality) of the sun (content) (Dancy &
Sosa, 1992: 125-127; Leon, 1987). This is however a very loose individuation because it
is a type of a mental state. It must be someones vision about the sun Jacks or Jills in
order for it to become an individual state. In sum, the existence of an experience always
entails a human being who has it.
A flow of visual sensations, pains, and thoughts exists. An objection to this argument is
that they do not exist because only material processes exist. It is impossible for both
judgments to be true. If a human body is studied and only physiological events are
discovered in it, it can be said that there are no mental experiences in a living body.
Nevertheless, a question arises: what is the discovery based on? The discovery is
justified only by a flow of sensations of researchers; but from that answer, it follows
logically that the claim experiences do not exist is based on researchers flow of
experiences, which at the same time leads to a contradiction. The implication empirical
knowledge about the external world grounded on experience necessarily implies the
existence of experience would be true. A researchers flow of sensations cannot
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research a subjects brain processes. One persons flow of sensations cannot be another
persons brain processes. This analysis confirms a non-reductive theory of subjective
experience. Let us pass on to the nature of experience next.
To know what experiences are and to know via experiences are two distinct things.
Experiences must exist in order to know via experiences. As I mentioned earlier,
experience has representational content and phenomenal properties. For example, the
content of a yellow dot-experience is a yellow dot, and one may find it stimulating. It
also has a limited duration and changes over time while remaining in sight. They cannot
be described by material terms. We do not say Part c of my brain is activating and
expect someone to understand what is going on. We speak about the contents of our
dreams, images, and visual sensations.
Let us now consider two sets of beings. One set includes object-experiences and the
other includes matters. Can we give an example in which one a particular yellow dotexperience is both non-material and material? This would mean that there is an entity in
both sets, and thus these sets would intersect. Therefore, the question What is a yellow
dot-experience? would imply the answer a yellow dot-experience is a material entity,
which is an identity statement. From that, it follows that if we form an objection a
yellow dot-experience is a non-material entity, it would be untrue and contradictory
because a material entity is a non-material entity would be also untrue and
contradictory. Nevertheless, the statement a yellow dot-experience is a material entity
seems to not be a true identity statement because a yellow dot-experience cannot be
described in a materialistic fashion. Therefore, a set of object-experience and a set of
matter do not intersect. This confirms a claim: [(x) (y) ~ (~Mx My) x y], where
one entity is non-material and another is material.
Experience has an interesting essence in human knowledge. If we lack experience, we
miss some essential parts of a phenomenon, and thus we do not know exactly what the
phenomenon is. Frank Jackson (1986) might say that we know more when we are
experiencing. It seems clear that knowing is based on having a mental state: one knows
what a rainbow looks like because one has seen it, or one has past visual experience of
rainbows. A video camera is able to record the phenomenon of a rainbow but it is not
able to focus its attention on something and perceive it as a rainbow: that is, a video
camera neither has the ability to experience nor be conscious of what is going on in the
environment. Let us think next, for example, about kissing. We can describe kissing
when we see an action that is called kissing. That is, what a couple is doing right now, is
kissing. However, we do not know everything about the kissing action if we have not
had our own experience of itthat is, if we have never kissed or seen someone kissing,
we do not know what kissing is. Moreover, to describe what other people are doing or
what is going on in another persons body is not possible without seeing. Seeing is a
cognitive event. Knowledge about other peoples actions or another persons bodily
events is based on the observers own subjective cognitive events such as seeing. Hence,
to describe what other people are doing or what is going on in another persons body is
based on describing the observers own subjective cognitive event; it is not based on the
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observers brain processes. In conclusion, for humans to find what is going on, ones
own experiences are necessary, although humans can live without some sources of
experience, such as without visual experience. I do not understand how the existence of
mental phenomena can be eliminated, although they always arise with theories and
theoretical knowledge.
Experiences can be distinguished in different ways. Although we have defined an
experience and tried to individuate it above, introspection is still not a very accurate way
of knowing the nature of subjective experiences. In Churchlands words, introspection
makes us believe in the existence of private experience. It seems that our inner states
have at least some phenomenal properties. These experiences have temporal duration
and, if they have a spatial property, they must be located in a person. If a mental entity is
in a person, it cannot simultaneously be located outside a person. It is then unclear with
which eliminative materialism identifies for example a flow of visual sensations. By this I
mean that it cannot be both a physiological brain process and a natural phenomenon of
an external world.
Empirical and experience are internally related concepts. Empirical means
experiential. If experience does not exist, however, the basis of empirical knowledge
must be something else. The neural events of brains, such as being in a brain state q,
would be a necessary condition of the knowledge claim x knows that p. Experience
would not be a necessary justification for knowledge.
3. The Meaning of Empirical Knowledge in Churchlands Theory:
From a Brain State to Knowledge
We tend to share a common belief that experience informs us about the objects and
events from an outer environment that are independent of our intellect and senses.
Experience justifies our belief that there is a moon in the sky. Propositional moonknowledge and a shared belief are conceptually related, not reducible to a physical
foundation. A belief that experience informs us about p implies that true claims about p
are being presented. A phrase p because of q is a consequence of Churchlands theory,
because a brain state q is required in order to know p. His theory involves
representationalism.
The argument for the discrepancy between a flow of sensations and an object in an
external world would be:
1) [(x) Mx and P1x Mx and ~P2x]
2) If x occurs in place 1, then x does not occur in place 2
3) If mental entities, which are brain processes, occur in a living organism, then
they do not occur external to a living organism
4) A sensation-of-yellow occurs in the brain of a living organism
5) Thus, a sensation-of-yellow does not occur on the wall
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This means that sensations cannot identify with both brain processes and the events of
an external world, which would make eliminative materialism an incoherent theory. The
visual yellow-experience occurs within a subjects brains: if eliminative materialism is
true, it is not exist outside of the brain. Nevertheless, of course, a flow of sensations-ofyellow can be in representational relation to the real wall and the reflection of light, and
they all are not brain processes. Brain processes represent the real world and the
reflection of light. (Churchland, 1992: 4201)
Through sense perception, one obtains information about the facts of an external world,
because the external world is like the content of sense perception. For example, the
moon is like the content of a moon-experience, where the moon in the experience is a
content representing the moon of the sky. In the argument above, according to
Churchlands theory, the brain state informs a person about the fact of an external
world: I know that my visual experience refers to a fact of an external world. This is a
propositional attitude to empirical knowledge and the existence of an object-experience.
Churchlands theory denies the existence of this object-experience as a mental entity and
propositional attitude. If one followed this theory, there would be neither a traditional
distinction of appearance and reality nor two distinct categories of objects of
consciousness and of reality. One knows via brain states (Churchland, 1981, 69-71, 8488; 1992: 419-421). If experience is eliminated, how then is a fact of an external world
like a brain state?
Churchlands theory implies two theses: (1) the meaning of empirical knowledge is not
related to subjective experience and propositional attitude, and (2) facts of reality are
external to brain states. First, because experience does not exist, the basis of knowledge
claims must be brain states: one knows p because of a brain state q. Vision is a process
in the optic nerve and visual cortex informing someone about facts of an external world.
In particular, one knows p if a vision q informs one about p. Therefore, one presents
true claims about p based on vision q.
Second, a brain state and the fact of an external world really are two distinct entities
because they are located in distinct places; for example, the former is in living bodies
and the latter is located some distance from the body. If the revolution of the Moon
around the Earth is a fact of the external world, it is not like a process of neural cells.
These neural events seem not to be actual facts of an external world. That is, they do
not disclose the external world but represent it somehow. Churchlands explanation of
how brain states represent or reveal something outside of them is very ambiguous.
Finally, the assumption was that if something is proved to be such and such by
experience, experience must also exist. Churchlands objection is that there is no nonmaterial experience and that the basis of our piece of knowledge concerning a fact of
the external world is something other than experience, such as neural brain state. Is it
possible to reply to his objection? When one hallucinates about a flying dagger and there
is nothing in the air, it is still some sort of sensory object a private object of which one
is aware. Furthermore, one observes a flying dagger with other spatial things, although it
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is not real. One cannot deny that observation reveals that object. It does reveal an
object, and thus it would reveal at least one experience a flying-dagger-experience. I
can imagine that Churchland would say the old theoretical framework makes me see
things that do not exist. Neuroscience may explain and predict hallucinations better than
folk psychology, but it seems to me that it does not explain away or predict
hallucination experiences. Hallucinations are experiences that can be described by means
of non-material concepts.
4. Conclusion
This paper has discussed the existence, essence, and identification of experience.
Because experience is an important cognitive ability and its basis is physiological, one
must admit its existence. A way of thinking in which it is insisted that ones perceptual
experience is found in the external world outside a mind is a false view. A world
separate from oneself is something other than experiences, because there is no distance
between the owner of an experience and an experience. One must admit experience if
one first admits that human knowledge about the external world is based on the senses.
However, the merit of Churchlands theory is that it shows why mental states including
experience are not a necessary condition for knowledge. The theory of neuroscience
does not require experience in its core: it would independently explain why brain states
inform us about reality without mental entities. After all, this would mean that the
source of knowledge is not something outside us, but that we would be the origin of
knowledge.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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14.
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15. Rorty, R. (1965), Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories, The Review of Metaphysics, XIX:
2454.
16. Russell, B. (1900), A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. London: Routledge, paperback
edition first published in 1992 by Routledge)
Page
110
Rsum Traiter de la problmatique du langage et ses liens avec la ralit est un terrain
propice pour illustrer larticulation entre la posture du scientifique (ici surtout le linguiste)
et la posture du philosophe. En effet, se questionner sur le langage renvoie notamment
dterminer sa relation avec le dveloppement des mcanismes cognitifs du sujet selon
Piaget ; avec la signification et le sens des mots utiliss selon lusage comme le montre
Wittgenstein ; avec lhomme qui parle et ses intentions comme agent en situation selon
les propos de Lipps, et comme un retour au sujet parlant afin dexplorer cette relation
spcifique entre lhomme et le monde par la mdiation du langage comme le montre
lapproche phnomnologique de Merleau-Ponty. Bref, cest en explorant lancrage du
langage dans la ralit du sujet parlant et pensant quon retrouve lhorizon dune rflexion
philosophique sur les potentialits du langage et ses limites.
AL-MUKATABAT JOURNAL, Issue 10/April 2014, Samir Dhahbi Jemel : Langage et Ralit,
pp. 111-119.
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0. Introduction
Dans son dualisme qui oppose le sujet au monde et lhomme aux animaux, Descartes
considre que notre existence est doue, dune part de la raison et il faut bien lutiliser,
dautre part de la parole et de faire exprimer nos ides et nos penses aux autres. La
linguistique, surtout avec de Saussure et son cole, a franchi un pas de gant dans la
connaissance du langage au point de changer notre conception de lhomme et de sa
relation au monde. Mais le problme principal qui soffre nous est de confirmer ou
dinfirmer si la linguistique apporte un savoir complet sur le langage et donc, de voir si
tous ses usages sont une application des concepts linguistiques ; ou si nous pouvons
parler dune philosophie du langage qui apporte une critique et un approfondissement
de notre discours dans le monde et avec les autres. Notre approche consiste montrer
limportance de cette philosophie du langage et linsuffisance de la linguistique
rpondre la question : quest-ce que le langage ?, malgr les applications utiles d'une
telle approche scientifique.
1. Quest-ce que le langage ?
Notre question ne vise pas rellement un travail sur lessence du langage ou ce qui
distingue les signes linguistiques des autres signes et symboles. Dailleurs, les tudes
linguistiques et leurs applications sont tellement tendues quil nous est impossible dans
cet crit de les passer toutes en revue sans sy perdre. Beaucoup plus restreint, notre
objectif est au contraire de montrer laspect problmatique de la question du discours
qui est li la pense, la ralit de lhomme et du monde. En effet, selon de Saussure,
il faut distinguer la linguistique diachronique de la langue dune linguistique
synchronique de la parole. En dautres termes, entre une linguistique interne qui tudie
la langue en elle-mme comme systme de signes cest l'objet vritable de la
linguistique selon de Saussure dune linguistique externe qui tudie la langue en
relation avec les autres phnomnes, telles que la psychologie, la sociologie ou la
logique. Le langage comme mode dexpression verbale rfre au sujet parlant, en tant
que sujet au monde et sujet pensant, ainsi qu ce qui existe hors de lui et hors du
langage. La parole comme action individuelle de la personne ne se rduit pas une
simple utilisation des signes arbitraires de sa langue maternelle ou dune langue acquise
pour exprimer ses ides aux autres. Elle traduit la relation de sens, comme relation
symbolique, entre lhomme et lhomme et, entre lhomme et le monde. Cest une
relation de donation et de construction, de cration et daction.
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par
lespritToute pense construite des signes en mme temps que des choses.1 Serrus
Affirme : Il ny a pas que la pense exprime Toute pense est insparable de son
expression2. Quant L. Lavelle, il considre que Le langage nest pas, comme on le
croit souvent, le vtement de la pense : il en est le corps vritable La pense nest
rien sans parole.3
Lvi-Strauss insiste sur le fait que le langage et non la technique, qui est le vrai signe
reprsentatif de la culture 4. Et comme Emile Benveniste voit que le langage est la
facult de symbolisation par excellence et atteint son apoge avec lhomme, Lvi-Strauss
va jusqu dire que le langage mapparat comme le fait culturel par excellence. 5
Merleau-Ponty va plus loin en montrant la jonction entre la parole et la pense au point
que tout effort pour fermer notre main sur la pense qui habite la parole ne laissant
entre nos doigts quun peu de matriel verbal 6. Ces quelques pistes cites nous
amnent considrer le langage comme un problme trs important pour toute
philosophie qui parle de lhomme au monde et dpasse lopposition homme/monde.
2. Langage et psychologie
Piaget dfinit le langage comme une institution collective dont les rgles simposent aux
individus, qui se transmet de faon coercitive de gnration en gnration depuis quil y a des
hommes et dont les formes actuelles drivent sans discontinuit de formes antrieures.7 Le
mme auteur distingue la pense formelle qui constitue tout la fois une rflexion de
lintelligence sur elle-mmeet un renversement des rapports entre le possible et le rel 8, de la
* Note : Cet article a t publi dans la revue de philosophie de lUniversit de Sherbrooke Le Rflexif,
volume IX, no1/Janvier, Hiver 2008, pp-60-70.
1
Ibid.
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pense autistique qui a pour unique fonction de donner aux besoins et aux intrts une
satisfaction immdiate et sans contrle, en dformant le rel pour ladapter au moi.1
La rflexion sur le langage, selon Piaget, ne se spare pas de ltude du dveloppement des
mcanismes cognitifs. Il y a une logique de laction et de l'intentionnalit oprationnelle qui lie le
dire au faire et la pense laction et qui cherche inventer de nouveaux moyens par des
combinaisons mentales pour aboutir aux finalits de tout apprentissage travers la
diffrenciation, lassimilation et l'accommodation.
Des oprations sensori-motrices jusquaux oprations abstraites, lenfant dveloppe, dune faon
cognitive et volutive, son expression et sa connaissance de soi et du monde. Avant Piaget, on
supposait que le langage tait la source de lintelligence, mais ce dernier a montr que la pense
symbolique est antrieure au langage puisque la pense opratoire est dorigine non-verbale.
Le langage permet les changes avec les autres et de se confronter avec eux. Ds son utilisation,
le monde du sujet et son intimit se manifeste lautre dans le processus de la communication.
Le langage favorise la gense dun moi idal comme image de ce que doit tre le moi selon la
rfrence de lducation sociale puisquil dbute par une imitation originale de ladulte et mme
des autres enfants du mme ge. Le contenu du langage varie selon lge ; il se dplace du
propos gocentrique la conduite socialise. Le langage, comme les autres oprations mentales,
favorise la connaissance de soi, linteraction avec les autres ainsi que la dcouverte et linvention
du monde.
3. Langage et logique
Nous pouvons rduire les thses du no-positivisme en trois ides :
a) Toute proposition ayant un sens doit pouvoir se traduire dans un langage logique ;
b) Les propositions analytiques sont vraies ou fausses par dfinition ;
c) Les propositions synthtiques sont vraies ou fausses par vrification.
Do on peut conclure que toute proposition synthtique invrifiable na pas de sens ou en est
simplement dpourvue ; comme les propositions mtaphysiques des idalistes et tout jugement
synthtique a priori (Kant). Dpourvue de la mtaphysique, la philosophie peut tudier les
propositions logiques pour en discerner le vrai du faux ; ou plus exactement pour distinguer
entre les propositions qui ont de sens des autres qui en sont dpourvues, ce qui justifie
linvestigation du langage pour connatre la pense.
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Wittgenstein (1889-1951) met laccent sur la signification et le sens des mots utiliss pour assurer
la distinction entre les vrais problmes de la philosophie et les pseudo- problmes. Il insiste dans
le Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1921) que le sens du monde doit se trouver en dehors du
monde et que tout ce qui peut tre dit peut tre dit clairement ; ce dont on ne peut parler on
doit le taire. 1 Do il conclut que les limites de mon langage signifie les limites de mon
propre monde.
Dans le dire, chaque mot a une signification qui reprsente son usage, au point de voir une
reprsentation primitive de la manire dont il fonctionne comme langage. Pour dissiper la
brume sur son fonctionnement, Wittgenstein suggre dtudier les formes primitives de lusage
des phnomnes du langage. Lutilisation du langage nest pas spare des agents et de leurs
intentions. Il ne faut pas confondre dnommer et dcrire. Le fait de nommer nentre pas encore
dans le jeu des mots, comme on nomme le roi dans lchiquier ; dcrire se rapporte au sens et
lusage du langage. Pour comprendre la signification du langage et son usage, il faut connatre
ces rgles de fonctionnement. Comme-ci nous dcouvrons une vieille cit, ou comme-ci nous
jouons au chec : chaque lment a son rle et sa valeur selon sa fonction. Le mot na de
signification, selon Frege, que dans le sens et la dnotation dtermins puisque le mme sens
peut avoir plusieurs expressions dans des langues diffrentes et parfois dans la mme langue :
Le lien rgulier entre le signe, son sens, et sa dnotation, est tel quau signe correspond un sens
dtermin et au sens une dnotation dtermine tandis quune seule dnotation (un seul objet)
est susceptible de plus dun signe.2 .
La signification renvoie lobjet quon dsigne et non au nom qui le porte. Do la ncessit
d'analyser la relation entre le discours et son utilisation pour exprimer la vrit. La distinction
entre un discours qui a du sens et un autre qui en est dpourvu, nous assure le bon usage du
langage pour explorer la vrit. Ce qui exige la distinction, dans lusage de la langue, entre la
manire habituelle ou la langue qui parle de quelque chose, et la manire particulire ou la langue
qui parle de la langue : Si on emploie les mots de la manire habituelle, cest de leur dnotation
quon parle. Mais il peut se faire quon veuille parler des mots eux-mmes ou de leur sens.3
Ibid.
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115
H. LIPPS. Recherche pour une logique hermneutique, traduction, notes et postface par Stefen
Kristensen, Paris, Vrin, 2004, p. 29.
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116
retour aux choses mmes dsigne, pour Lipps, non un face--face entre le sujet et lobjet, mais
linterprtation de cette unit donne toujours en bloc de lobjet et du sujet. Do limportance
de laction de la parole sur notre accs au monde. Cest toujours en situation que la relation entre
le sujet et lobjet se prsente. Sans le langage, la ralit perd tout sens. Ce qui montre
limportance du langage pour explorer la ralit et lexprimer. La vrit selon Lipps, proche de la
conception heideggrienne, est la proprit de la chose en tant quelle se montre ; elle est ce que
la parole donne connatre. La parole comme intersubjectivit vise le monde des choses en tant
quobjet de tout discours. De cette faon, la parole renvoie au sens du monde : Or la parole,
insiste Lipps, est ici on la saisit dans sa ralit non mutile- est toujours sa place en tant que
parole, en tant quinscrites dans les rencontres avec autrui, les choses sont aperues.1
Nous pouvons conclure que selon Lipps, il ny a pas de ralit en soi, ni un sujet structur, mais
quil y a, travers le discours du sujet, une situation qui unit lhomme au monde. Cest le
langage, dans sa mouvance et sa vivacit, qui reflte lintentionnalit de notre conscience et la
donation du monde au sens.
5. Phnomnologie du langage
La recherche de M. Merleau-Ponty joint la recherche de Lipps sur le rapport du langage la
ralit pour mettre en valeur une phnomnologie du langage comme ncessaire dans le projet
philosophique. Pour Merleau-Ponty, le rel nest pas construire ou constituer mais dcrire.
Il est lintentionnalit et le rsultat de lintersubjectivit : Quand je parle ou quand je
comprends, jexprimente la prsence dautrui en moi ou de moi en autrui, qui est la pierre
dachoppement de la thorie de lintersubjectivit 2 .
La ralit se montre par et dans le langage. Il faut dpasser lopposition saussurienne entre une
linguistique synchronique de la parole et une linguistique diachronique de la langue. La premire
met laccent sur laspect historique du langage alors que la deuxime ltudie comme il est
maintenant dans sa structure spcifique. Ce qui intresse lapproche phnomnologique est le
rapport entre le langage comme objet de pense et le langage comme mien. Nul ne peut nier ce
que nous enseigne lexprience de la parole sur ltre. C'est ce qu'exige de nous une rflexion sur
le langage comme thme fondamental dans la philosophie. En effet, puisque le problme du
langage nest pas de la philosophie premire, Husserl laborde plus librement, autrement que
comme un problme de connaissance ou de perception. Le langage dans la phnomnologie de
Husserl, prend deux sens. Il est dune part, un accompagnement ou moyen secondaire de
communication, dans lide dune eidtique du langage et dune grammaire universelle des
formes de signification. Dautre part, dans ses textes antrieurs, il parle du langage comme une
Ibid, p. 15.
M. MERLEAU-PONTY. loge de la philosophie et autres essais, Paris, Gallimard, 1953 et 1960, collection
ides, p. 110.
1
2
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manire originale de viser certains objets, comme le corps de la penseou mme comme
lopration par laquelle des penses qui, sans lui, resteraient phnomnes privs, acquirent
valeur intersubjective et finalement existence idale.1
La phnomnologie du langage ne consiste pas crer une langue universelle, mais retourner
au sujet parlant qui utilise sa langue, comme moyen de communication, pour explorer la relation
unique, offerte par elle-mme entre lhomme et le monde. Il y a une porte ontologique du
langage qui nous mne rflchir sur la dialectique de la science objective de la langue et la
phnomnologie de la parole. Le subjectif enveloppe lobjectif, et le pass de la langue devient
prsent par lexprience de la parole. De mme lobjectif enveloppe le subjectif : cest dans la
langue quon trouve le moyen dexprimer. La diffrence de signification renvoie au systme et
notre connaissance des significations ne suffit pas pour expliquer lacte de parler. On se
dcouvre travers notre propre langage les signes organiss, affirme Merleau-Ponty, ont leur
sens immanent, qui ne relve pas du je pense , mais du je peux 2.
La pense nest donc pas spare du langage ; elle l'habite. Lexpression par la parole est une
action comme les gestes du corps ; nous croyons et nous voulons quelle exprime tout ce quon
veut dire. Mais lexpression est imparfaite, en tant quelle reflte ce quon vise, ce quest notre
conscience au prsent et un essai de remplir ce vide de communication entre le moi et lautre
travers lusage de la langue. Vaine est notre tche de matriser le langage par notre parole ainsi
que comprendre lautre selon ses paroles propres. travers le ttonnement personnel et lagir
intersubjectif, nous explorons le monde peru travers le monde du langage.
La parole, rsume Merleau-Ponty, en tant que distincte de la langue, est ce moment o
lintention significative encore muette et tout en acte savre capable de sincorporer la
culture, la mienne et celle dautrui, de me former et de le former en transformant le sens des
instruments culturels. 3
Une phnomnologie du langage savre donc trs importante non pas seulement pour la
linguistique, mais galement pour le questionnement philosophique sur lhomme et sur sa
prsence dans le monde.
6. Conclusion
Entre le langage et la ralit il y a lhomme qui les unit travers le sens. Si Nietzsche et Bergson
ont montr limpuissance du langage, cest pour distinguer le monde des mots et de leurs
significations structures, du monde des ides libres et infinies. Il est vrai que le langage ne peut
pas tout dire, et il est vrai aussi que lhomme peut exprimer dune faon plus adquate ses ides
Ibid, p.84-85.
M. MERLEAU-PONTY. loge de la philosophie, op. cit., p.93.
3
Ibid, p. 100.
1
2
Page
118
avec dautres moyens de communication, comme les expressions non-verbales du corps. Mais
nous ne pouvons pas dpasser la richesse infinie propre tout langage. Le monde, par les mots,
se meut du non-sens vers le sens.
Lhomme se meut de la simple prsence naturelle indiffrente une personne intentionnelle et
communicative ds quil commence parler. La dialectique entre lhomme et le monde se ralise
par le langage et dans le langage, comme une cration significative advenant ncessairement dans
une situation prcise. Limportance du langage pour lhomme, et donc pour notre rflexion
philosophique, consiste dans le fait quil est - comme le corps - le cur du monde dans notre
conscience.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
G. CHARBONNIER. Entretiens avec C.L. Strauss, Paris, Plon-Julliard, 1961.
Henri DELACROIX. Le langage et la pense, Paris, Alcan, 1922/1930.
G. FREGE. Sens et dnotations , dans crits logiques et philosophiques, trad. C. Imbert, Paris,
Seuil, 1971.
L. LAVELLE. La parole et lcriture, Paris, Artisan du livre, 1942.
H. LIPPS. Recherche pour une logique hermneutique, traduction, notes et postface par Stefen
Kristensen, Paris, Vrin, 2004.
M. MERLEAU-PONTY. loge de la philosophie et autres essais, Paris, Gallimard, 1953 et 1960,
collection ides.
Jean PIAGET. Le structuralisme, Paris, P.U.F., 1968, p.63.
Jean PIAGET et B. INHELDER. De la logique de lenfant la logique de Ladolescent, Paris, P.U.F.,
1955, p. 304.
Jean PIAGET. Le Jugement et le raisonnement chez lenfant, Neuchtel et Paris, Delachaux et Niestl,
1924, p. 193.
Ch. SERRUS. Le paralllisme logico-grammatical, Paris, Alcan, 1933.
L .WITTGENSTEIN. Tractatus philosophique suivi des Investigations philosophiques, traduction J.
Klossowski, Paris, Seuil, 1972.
Page
119
Sihem Sebai
(Universit de Tunis)
Rsum Ce travail part du fait que la modernit europenne sest ralise au moment o
lintellect a pris conscience de soi comme tant pouvoir de transcendance, fondement et
critre de toute connaissance ; ce qui trouve son illustration dans cette soumission du
savoir la mthode hypothtico-dductive. Nous avons essay de dmontrer que le livre
dIbn Roschd Fasl El Makal porte ce sens de la modernit sur deux niveaux. Le premier
niveau concerne sa tentative en vue de rsoudre le conflit qui se trouve au cur de la
civilisation arabo-musulmane entre philosophie et scharia. Il sagit de considrer le
raisonnement par mthode dmonstrative comme condition ncessaire de la foi. Le second
consiste tablir un rapport de dtermination entre la question de la comprhension et la
question cognitive, et de soumettre linterprtation du texte sacr la raison logique.
-
. .
.
." "
Abstract This work is based on the fact that european modernity was realized when the
intellect has recognized itself as power of transcendence, foundation and criteria of
knowledge. That is illustrated in knowledge submission to the hypothetical deductive
method. We tried to prove that Ibn Roshds book Fasl El Makal carry this sense of
modernity on two levels. The first level concerns Ibn Roshds attempt to resolve the
conflict inside the Arab Muslim civilization between Philosophy and Sharia. It is based on
regarding demonstrative method reasoning as necessary condition of faith. The second
level is to establish a determination relation between comprehension and cognitive
questions, and to submit the sacred text interpretation to logical reason.
pp. 120-130.
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1, 24b 15-20, pp. 4-5 ; Tome VI, Les Rfutations sophistiques, trad. et notes J. Tricot, Vrin, 1995, 1,
165 a, p. 2.
) (23 .45
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Aristote, Organon, Tome VI, Les Rfutations sophistiques, trad. et notes J. Tricot, Vrin, 1995,34 ,
pp. 134-5 ; La Mtaphysique, Tome I, trad. et notes J. Tricot, Vrin, Paris, 1991, livre , 5, pp. 198217.
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Isa Spahiu
(International Balkan University, Skopje)
Abstract Figurative language is language that one must figure out. The term
figurative is an antonym of literal. In literal language the words convey
meaning exactly as defined, whereas in figurative language there is room for
interpretation. An effort is required on the part of the interpreter to determine the
speaker or writers intended meaning. The listener or reader must figure out what
is meant. Coded meanings play an important role in the construction of conceptual
integration networks for literal and figurative meanings alike. So, this essay makes
an effort in describing non literal usage of language in English and Albanian
Language. It also discusses common figures of speech which help us use and
understand the figurative language.
" " .
.""
.
. .
.
.
.
Rsum Le langage figur est un langage que l'on doit comprendre. Le terme
"figur" est un antonyme de "littral". Dans le langage littral, les mots tiennent leur
signification exactement tels qu'ils sont dfinis, alors que dans le langage figur il y a
place pour l'interprtation. Un effort est requis du ct de l'interprte pour
dterminer la signification qui est dans l'intention de l'crivain ou de celui qui parle.
Celui qui coute ou le lecteur doit figurer tout ce qui est signifi. Les significations
codes jouent un rle important dans la construction des rseaux d'intgration
conceptuelle la fois pour les significations littrales et figures. Il est donc question
dans cette tude de fournir des efforts pour dcrire l'usage non littral du langage en
Anglais et en Albanais. Nous discuttons aussi des formes de parole communes
susceptibles de nous aider comprendre et utliser le langage figur.
AL-MUKHATABAT JOURNAL, Issue 10/April 2014, Isa Spahiu : Literal Vs. Non Literal, English
and Albanian Contrastive Study, pp. 131-151.
Page
131
1. Introduction
Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human.
Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to
understanding the very nature of humanity.
Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak
profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.
The distinction between literal and non-literal meanings is easier to make than it is to
describe. Meaning is more than just a sum of the parts. Human understanding of
figurative language requires more than the monotonic combination of individual word
meanings.
2. Literal and non literal Language
Linguistics is the field of study, the subject of which is language.1One of the
branches in linguistics which deals with meaning is called semantics. In semantics,
meaning can be divided into two parts, literal and non-literal meaning.2 Literal meaning
is based on the real or lexical meaning of the utterance. We can find this meaning in the
dictionary.
For examples:
1. He is a strong man
2. You are a smart student
3. They work hard everyday
In Albanian Language:
1.Ti je nj burr i forte
2.Ti je nj nxns i mnur
3.Ato punojn shum do dit
All the sentences above are literal in meaning as long as the speaker means
lexically in all the utterances. The first sentence means that he is strong, or powerful,
has physical power, it also shows an ability to do heavy works. The second sentence
means that you are clever, smart, have good knowledge. While the third means that
they work hard, and make a very hard effort to do the job.
Non-literal meaning occurs when a sentence or word has another hidden
meaning besides the lexical meaning of the word. When a speaker means something
1
2
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different from the lexical meaning of the word, it is what we called as the non-literal
meaning. It often happens in daily conversation that a speaker has different meaning in
his utterances from the lexical meaning. Ex: I could eat a horse.
3. Stylistic figures
As figurative language is to be met within almost every sentence; and, when
properly employed, confers beauty and strength on composition; some knowledge of it
appears to be indispensable to the scholars, who are learning to form their sentences
with perspicuity, accuracy, and force. We shall, therefore, enumerate the principal
figures, and give them some explanation.
In general, Figures of Speech imply some departure from simplicity of
expression; the idea which we mean to convey is expressed in a particular manner, and
with some circumstance added, which is designed to render the impression more strong
and vivid.1 When I say, for instance, "That a good man enjoys comfort in the midst of
adversity"; I just express my thoughts in the simplest manner possible: but when I say,
"To the upright there arise the light in darkness"; the same sentiment is expressed in a
figurative style; a new circumstance is introduced; "light," is put in the place of
"comfort," and "darkness" is used to suggest the idea of "adversity."
But, though figures imply a deviation from what may be reckoned the most
simple form of speech, we are not thence to conclude, that they imply anything
uncommon, or unnatural. On many occasions, they are both the most natural, and the
most common method of uttering our sentiments. It would be very difficult to compose
any discourse without using them often; nay, there are few sentences of considerable
length, in which there does not occur some expression that may be termed a figure. This
being the case, we may see the necessity of some attention, in order to understand their
nature and use.
At the first rise of language, men would begin with giving names to the different
objects which they discerned, or thought of. The stock of words would, then, be very
small. As men's ideas multiplied, and their acquaintance with objects increased, their
store of names and words would also increase. But to the vast variety of objects and
ideas, no language is adequate.2
Colston, Herbert L., and Albert N. Katz Figurative Language Comprehension Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2004, p. 21
2 Addison, Catherine. From Literal to Figurative College English, 1993, p. 19.
1
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133
of
a piercing judgment,
and
a clear
head;
a soft or
a hard heart;
a rough or smooth behavior. We say, inflamed by anger, warmed by love, swelled with
pride, melted into grief; and these are almost the only significant words which we have
for such ideas1.
3. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a very large exaggeration. For example, your eyes are as bright as
stars. Of course your eyes here does not really means shining like star, but it just to
show that the eyes here is different and brighter than the other.
Etymologically, hyper translates roughly to over and bole translates
roughly to throw. So the word hyperbole means to overthrow or to go over.
Other forms of hyperbole include hyperbolic (adjective) and hyperbolically (adverb)2.
3.1 Examples of hyperbole in English Language:
1. Yeah, I already beat that game 80,000 years ago.
2. Nobody listens to that song anymore.
3. Old Mr. Johnson has been teaching here since the Stone Age.
4. Forget knocking it out of the park, Frank can knock a baseball off the
continent.
5. These shoes are killing me.
1
2
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136
Idioms are often considered to be figurative language, and while most idioms are
in fact figurative, idiom is not a distinct figurative language technique. Rather, most
idioms are similes, metaphors, hyperbole, or other figurative language techniques. What
separates an idiom from its original technique, however, is that idioms have been used
so commonly that they became incorporated into the colloquial lexicon of native
language speakers. For example, the idiom Im so hungry that I could eat a horse, is
actually an example of hyperbole. And the idiom, dropping like flies is actually a
simile.
6.1 Here are some idiom examples:
1. Bobs new corner office was just the icing on the cake (metaphor).
2. After eating candy, Billy ran around like a chicken with his head cut off (simile).
3. The quarter back was running out of steam (metaphor).
4. That new car cost an arm and a leg (hyperbole).
5. Tom said that he changed but actions speak louder than words (personification).
Idioms are generally used so frequently by native language speakers that it often
goes unnoticed that figurative language is even being used. When someone is learning a
new language, one of the milestones of progress is when the learner begins to
understand and use the language idiomatically or colloquially.
6.2 Idioms in Albanian Language:
1. Hyp se t'vrava, zhdryp se t'vrava (whatever I do, I will always be wrong).
2. T njoh si paren e kuqe (I know you very well).
3. Me faqe t'bardh (to do something with good intentions).
4. Mos mbaj zi (don't worry).
5. Ta hanksha syrin (you're so cute).1
7. Irony
Irony means to say something that the meaning is the opposite of what is being
spoken, for example when your friend is wearing shoes into your bed, you may say,
that is very good. Of course you do not really mean that wearing shoes to bed is a good
habit and you do not really mean that it is allowed in your house to use shoes to bed,
rather to show that you forbid it.
1
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137
Sulltani A.Z.ajupi.
Page
138
Bibliography
Dascal, Marcelo, 1987. "Defending literal meaning". Cognitive Science, 11: 3. 25981.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago.
Rumelhart, David E. 1979. Some problems with the notion of literal meaning. Oxford
University press.
Menella, A, 1987: Gjuha letrare shqipe Toena, Prishtina
Sweetser, E. 1990. ,Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Winner, E. & Gardner, H. 1977, The comprehension of metaphor, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago.
Internet Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_and_figurative_language /accessed:
13.03.2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figures_of_speech / accessed: 15.03.2012
http://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figura_stilistike / accessed: 19.03.2012
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part, a pour premire tche de numriser les maquettes ralises par Gehry pour quelles
deviennent un ensemble de volumtries dessines sur lordinateur. Cette phase est suivie
par la suite par dautres qui se rsument au calcul pour savoir sil y a une possibilit
dexcution de son uvre. En cas dinvalidit, Gehry modifie son ide appuye par les
rsultats obtenus par lordinateur. Un va et vient se cre alors entre la pratique plastique
de larchitecte et celle scientifique et technique de loutil informatique. Dailleurs, cest
bien partir de cet change que se produit luvre dans sa posture finale. Le rle de
loutil informatique ne sachve pas ce stade, mais stale davantage pour extrapoler
les diffrents plans ncessaires pour la ralisation de luvre. Dailleurs, lexcution du
muse a ncessit plus de 3000 plans, ce qui est impossible raliser main leve ou
alors ncessite plusieurs annes de travail, sans pour autant avoir la mme exactitude.
Sans laide de loutil informatique, il est clair que Gehry naurait pas russi sa conception
telle quelle a t prsente dans sa version finale et cest bien grce loutil informatique
que cette uvre rvolutionnaire a pu avoir lieu.
Page
143
lexemple de lOpra de Duba conue par Zaha Hadid (ill. n 2). Il sagit dans cette uvre
de lun des projets les plus rcents dessins par larchitecte, mais pas encore ralis. Pour
le concevoir, Hadid sest inspire des dunes de sables du Sahara. Afin de le modliser,
elle sest entraide dune quipe spcialise dans la modlisation paramtrique. Elle a
travaill sur divers logiciels afin dlaborer ltude du projet.
N en 1939, San Francisco en Californie, Richard Serra est un artiste amricain connu comme tant un
des reprsentants majeurs de la sculpture contemporaine.
2 N Bombay en 1954, sculpteur britannique contemporain dorigine indienne. Il est actuellement un des
artistes les plus influents du monde de la cration artistique lchelle internationale.
1
Page
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Illustration n3
Illustration n4
Page
145
Pour citer un exemple, les illustrations n 5 et 6 sont des images de synthse qui
prsentent deux uvres de Nick Ervinck1. Elles se distinguent par une interaction entre
lespace sculptural et lespace architectural. Grce lusage de loutil informatique, le
sculpteur a la possibilit de voir ses uvres dans leur matrialit physique. Il peut alors
changer une forme ou une couleur avant de passer son excution. Cest galement
loccasion de les mettre dans leur cadre rel, savoir larchitecture et lusager qui vont
les contenir et les ctoyer. Cette nouvelle ralit conceptuelle est une approche
technologique qui va faciliter et aider la ralisation de peaux enveloppantes novatrices.
Grce loutil informatique, le concepteur implante de nouvelles possibilits afin de
pousser sa crativit au znith.
Page
146
Page
147
Cest ce qui est appel lart gnratif dans un contexte gnral sans se spcifier un art. En effet lart
gnratif est lart qui utilise des algorithmes qui gnrent de manire autonome luvre. Un des artistes les
plus connus dans cet art est le plasticien Stanza entre autre avec son uvre the Mirella variations.
2
Page
148
limage ou le volume peut changer voire mme se transformer pour devenir autre. De
mme, suite un rsultat de calcul, le concepteur est parfois oblig de transformer son
uvre pour que cette dernire soit possible excuter. Une manipulation non prvu
peut de mme donner une nouvelle ide et orienter en consquence la dmarche
cratrice vers une direction spontane et involontaire. Le concepteur est dans ce cas
influenc par le mdium numrique qui va lui suggrer ou/et imposer certaines
consignes, se mlant de la sorte de son processus conceptuel. Dans ce mme abord, et
en sexprimant propos de la pratique artistique de Gehry, Jean Nouvel1 dclare :
Ce qui est formidable avec Frank Gehry, cest quil va faire un croquis, froisser du
papier, recommencer, et mettre le croquis sur le papier ou le croquis en relief en
relation avec un vaste programme. Et puis, partir de l, lordinateur va prendre le
relais et va commencer tisser tout a, construire une image dans lespace,
2
matrialiser quelque chose qui est de lordre de linstantane et de linstable .
Page
149
A lre du XXIe sicle, les frontires entre les branches artistiques sestompent
parfois pour donner naissance de nouvelles disciplines. Architecture, sculpture et
informatique sinterfrent pour donner de nouvelles formes de collaboration et de
crativit. Lapport des nouvelles technologies ne se restreint gure aider le concepteur
raliser ses dessins ou bien lui faciliter les calculs pour sa production. Son rle stale
davantage sur limagination de nouvelle combinaison formelle et volumtrique. Le
processus via le logiciel devient une partie intermdiaire entre le dessin primaire et la
ralisation finale. De mme, le va et vient entre dessin sur papier et logiciel, maquette et
image de synthse devient dans bien des cas indispensable pour lachvement du
processus conceptuel. Les innovations technologiques alimentent le processus
conceptuel artistique qui, ds lors, use de la science pour produire un art qui dpasse la
cration traditionnelle. De son ct, la science ou/et les nouvelles technologies
contribuent produire ce qui les dpassent savoir lmotion et la sensibilit que cre
lart.
Lartiste et le scientifique se runissent dans lattitude de la recherche de la qute.
En effet, luvre nest plus irrationnelle et ne compte plus exclusivement sur lmotion
de son usager pour surprendre. Elle possde dornavant une aura scientifique. Ce
paradigme technologique et communicatif se prsente comme un stimulus et une
ouverture du concept artistique vers plus de crativit et dimagination. Toutefois, il ne
peut tre peru en tant qualination ou substitution de la tche conceptuelle du
concepteur, mme si la dimension technologique prend le dessus dans le processus
conceptuel dans certains cas. La dmarche de conception ne pourra jamais tre
totalement enferme dans un corpus scientifique, et en ce sens elle reste en partie un
art 1, disait Jacques PERRIN dans son ouvrage intitul Conception entre science et art regards
multiples sur la conception.
Il ne sagit pas notre avis dune simple architecture ou sculpture informatise
mais bien au-del. Nous sommes dans une nouvelle discipline crative et technologique
la fois. Luvre qui en rsulte est la fois plastique et numrique. Elle use des
prouesses technologiques pour faire voluer et transformer le domaine de la cration
spatio-artistique. Quil sagisse de lart de larchitecture ou celui de la sculpture, luvre
PERRIN Jacques (sous la dir.), Conception entre science et art regards multiples sur la conception, Lausanne,
Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2001, p. 5.
1
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150
Bibliographie :
BAUDRILLARD Jean et Jean NOUVEL, Les objets singuliers, architecture et philosophie,
Paris, Calmann-Lvy, 2000, 126 pages. (Petite bibliothque des ides, collection dirige
par Anne Dufourmantelle).
COLLECTIF, Art et mutations, les nouvelles relations esthtiques, Actes du Sminaire InterArts
de Paris, 2002-2003, Paris, Klincksieck, 2004, 250 pages.
DE MEREDIEU Florence, Histoire matrielle et immatrielle de lart moderne et contemporain,
Larousse, Paris, 2008, 723 pages.
FOL Jac, Arts visuels et architecture : propos luvre, Paris, lHarmattan, 2002, 98 pages.
PERRIN Jacques (sous la dir.), Conception entre science et art regards multiples sur la conception,
Lausanne, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2001, 282 pages.
Page
151
Omar Jasim Mohammed
(University of Mosul, Iraq)
Abstract The purpose of this study is to trace the development of the historical
pp, 152-167.
Page
152
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Abstract The purpose of this work is the demonstration of the relation between
the names of the constellations and the basic cultural characteristics of each
historical period. The presented historical periods are the Ancient Greek period, the
Arab era and the Renaissance.
.
.
Rsum Le but de ce travail est de dmontrer comment la relation entre les noms
des constellations et les caractristiques culturelles de base propre chaque priode
historique. Les priodes historiques prsentes seront celle de l'ancienne Grce, la
priode arabe et celle de la rennaissance.
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1. Introduction
The observation of the night sky has always been an exciting activity for humans. From
antiquity the stars were related to stories and legends of the folk tradition and passed on from
generation to generation. Many people grew up with grandparents stories about Pleiades and
the Avgerinos (the Greek word for Morning Star which is planet Venus when it appears in the
sky in dawn). For some others, the observation of the constellations was very important for
their daily habits. For example, the star Ursa Major was a kind of friend for the sailors maritime
wanderings while the night sky, despite its darkness, made shepherds understand that a new day
has already started. However, the question that arises is what the origin was of the names in the
stellar formations observed in the sky. The history of the names of the constellations starts from
antiquity and is very fascinating as it reflects to the civilization of each historical period.
2. Ancient Greece
Ancient people (Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians), who flourished in the region of
Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia studied the celestial bodies and their phenomena.
However, it should be mentioned that astronomy was not only an observation method for the
ancient Greek people, but a science whose representatives work is studied till today. The
mathematician and astronomer of the 4th century B.C., Eudoxus of Cnidus (408-355 B.C.)
recorded the constellations of the sky. His contribution to astronomy is very important, as the
work is considered the first systematic recording of constellations and their positions in the sky
(E.Theodossiou & E. Danezis 1990: 22-23). Eudoxus was the first to explain the apparent
motions of stars using concentric (or homocentric) spheres all of which had the same center and
each of them rotated into each other; thus the mathematical astronomy was about to be
established (Georgakopoulos 1995: 184). Moreover, according to Hipparchus, Eudoxus made a
map of the constellations of the tropical cycle and gave them names. Eudoxus writes in his work
that on the vernal tropic (tropic of Capricornus) there are the Aquarius legs, the Cetus tail, the
Canis legs and tail, the Argos stern and net () and the Centaurs tergum and breasts
(Hipparchus, In Arati and Eudoxi phaenomena, 1, 2, 20, 1-7.). Therefore, it is obvious that the
names of constellations mentioned in Eudoxus work are either from mythology, such as Argo
and Centaur, or from animals.
A few decades later, Aratus (315-240 B.C.) in his poems referred to constellations using heroes
of Greek Mythology (Perseus, Cassiopeia). In 277 BC, King Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia
urged Aratus on writing a poem about constellations. So, Aratus write a poem, consisting of
1154 verses, entitled Phaenomena. It consists of three parts. In the first part, called "Katasterosis"
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169
Aratus praises the constellations; in the second part he studies the "Rising and Setting Stars" and
in the third part, entitled Diosemeia, he refers to the weather forecast (Georgakopoulos 1995: 95).
The following quotes (Spandagos, 2002: 102-103) show that Aratus celestial descriptions are a
vivid depiction of Greek mythological tradition.
Aratus imagined the sky as a theater scene where all stories described in Greek mythology took
place. Therefore, it is correctly mentioned that when we use our imagination we see Hercules with his
lions skin in the sky, holding in his right hand a bat and in his left the branch of Hesperides apples.
(E. Theodossiou & E. Danezis 1990: 23).
An important part of Eudoxus and Aratus work saved thanks to the astronomer of 2nd
century B.C. Hipparchus. He compiled a star catalog (127 B.C.), the original of which does not
survive, including data for the 1039 brightest stars in the sky (Georgakopoulos: 243). However,
Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.) in his work Almagest compiled a similar star catalog. In this
catalog are recorded 48 constellations, whose names originate from animals, gods and heroes
name, such as Eagle, Auriga, Botes, Cepheus, Cetus, Corvus, Crater, Delphinus, Draco,
Eridanus, Hercules, Hydra, Lupus, Lyra and Orion (Claudius Ptolemy, Almagest,).
The most well-known names among the 88 constellations that are recorded in star catalogs are
these of the zodiac, which were accurately described by Claudius Ptolemy. According to popular
tradition, the zodiac constellations are studied for predicting the future. Moreover, they play a
crucial role in astronomy as these 12 constellations define the Ecliptic (the apparent path of the
Sun on the celestial sphere throughout the course of a year) and are the base of the calendars
construction. Their names begging with the vernal equinox (Aries) are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini,
Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces (Claudius
Ptolemy, Almagest, 1, 2, 82). Due to the Suns apparent motion along the Ecliptic, the Sun looks
like passing through the constellations; the Sun stays in each of them for one month. Therefore,
when someone is Sagittarius in the sign, it means that the Sun passed through the
constellation of Sagittarius at his/her day of birth.
Taking into consideration the above mentioned, it is obvious that the names of constellations in
ancient Greece originate from Greek mythology and influenced by the popular and religious
tradition.
3. The Arab era
Undoubtedly, another important milestone in the history of astronomy is the Arab era. Arab
astronomers studied thoroughly the night starry sky. These observations were of great
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170
importance because the Arab travelers, who made long trips in desert, used them as guidance
for finding the orientation and the destination of their trips (Saliba 1994: 51).
In stellar maps many stars have Arabic names. However, the origin of these names is not related
to Arab culture; in fact the stars were recorded in Ptolemys catalog (consisting of 1022 stars) in
his work Almagest, which was later translated in Arabic by Al-Soufi (903-986 AD) in 10th AD
century.
The names given to them are complex and consist of the definite article -al- plus noun. For
example, ldebaran ( Tau) is the follower; Algenib ( Peg), derived from Al Janb is the side;
Algol ( Per) is the demon; while the name of the red giant Alpha Orionis ( Orionis, Ori) is
Betelgeuse, which means in Arabic hand of Orion. Thus, these names indicate that many
Arab names derived from the translation of Greek words (Allen, R.H., Star names their lore and
Meaning, 1963, pp. 324, 332, 384).
4. Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the
17th century. In this time period the science and astronomy were rapidly developed. Many great
astronomers lived then, such as Copernicus (1473-1543), Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642) and Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464), whose research was very important for the
development of astronomy. However, many other great scholars and astronomers works
affected the name giving of constellations.
In 1595 the Dutch navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser (1540-1596), after having made many
explorations in the southern hemisphere and detailed observations of the night sky, recorded 12
new constellations and added them in Ptolemys star catalog. He gave them exotic names such
as Dorado, Indus, Musca, Triangulum Australe, Chameleon, Pavo, Phoenix, Toucana, Apus, Volans, Grus,
Hydrus (Knobel 1917: 414-432). It is clearly that the Dutch navigator experiences played a key
role in the recording of these celestial bodies.
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171
The year 1603 is a milestone in the history of astronomy. The German astronomer Johann
Bayer (1572 -1625) made a star atlas called Uranometria and recorded 1277 stars in total. The great
astronomer proposed a new way of naming the constellations based on the name giving of the
brightest stars of each constellation with the small letters of the Greek alphabet; a methodology
followed till now. For example, the brightest star in the Orion constellation is the red giant
Betelgeuse, which is called Orionis; Orionis (Rigel) and Orionis (Bellatrix or Amazon Star)
follow. The Orionis, Orionis and Orionis follow which make up the belt of Orion and are called
Three Magi or the Three Kings. Finally, the Orionis is the name of several astronomical objects
located within the Orion Nebula.
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172
The name giving of the stars, proposed by Bayer, has been adopted by the International
Astronomical Union. The brightest stars of each constellation are named either with their
particular name (e.g. Aldebaran, Vega) or with the small letters of the Greek alphabet which is
followed by the name of the constellation where they belong to (e.g. a Lyr). The less bright stars
are named using the other small letters of the Greek alphabet (e.g. , ) respectively (E.
Theodossiou & E. Danezis, ., 1990: 27).
In 1687 the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) introduces seven new
constellations and gives them name of animals of astronomical instruments. These
constellations are: Canes Venatici, Lacerta, Leo Minor, Lynx, Scutum, Sextans (Jensen: 249 ). A
similar name giving method was followed by the French astronomer Abb Nicolas Louis de La
Caille (1713-1762), who named the constellations using the names of scientific instruments,
which were in wide use during this period. The great astronomer was sent to an expedition to
the Cape of Good Hope where he made observations and determined the position of about
10,000 stars using powerful telescopes (Stanley-Evans 1992). The names given to constellations
are not a product of imagination but a result of the positive spirit and technological
achievements of this period. Names such as, Antlia, Caelum, Circinus, Fornax, Horologium
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173
Conclusions
The elaborately study of the starry sky through years was influenced by the specific cultural
characteristics of each period and the technological development. Particularly in ancient Greece,
the study of the sky was related to the cultural inheritance and to the heroes of Greek
mythology. The relation and the constantly interaction between culture and science is a very
important fact that should be introduced in courses of astronomy because it is essential students
being taught astronomy with terms of Greek mythology.
REFERENCES
Allen, R.H.,1963, Star names their lore and Meaning, New York: Dover Publications.
Anderson, Cl. 1964. The Solar System and the Constellations, a Guidebook, New York: Vantage Press.
Claudius Ptolemy, 1898. Almagest, Teubner: Leipzig.
Georgakopoulos, Konstantinos. 1995. Ancient Greek Applied Scientists, Athens:
Georgiadis Publications {in Greek}.
Hipparchus, 1984. In Arati et Eudoxi phaenomena, Leipzig: Teubner.
Jensen, D. 2006. The Science of the Stars in Danzig from Rheticus to Hevelius, Dissertation Thesis, San
Diego: University of California.
Knobel, E.B. 1917. On Frederick de Houtman's catalogue of southern stars, and the origin of
the southern constellations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 77, p.414-432
Saliba, G. 1994. A history of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam,
New York: New York University Press.
Page
174
Spandagos, . 2002. Phenomena and Diosemeia of Aratus from Soli Athens: Ethra Publications
Stanley-Evans, D. 1992. Lacaille: Astronomer, Traveler: with a New Translation of his Journal, Tucson:
Pachart Publications.
Theodossiou Efrstatios and Danezis Emmanuel, 1990. The Stars and their Myths-An Introduction to
Uranography, Athens: Diavlos Publications.
Page
175
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Il n'y a pas mieux que la citation suivante pour bien situer le contexte dans lequel se
dploient les deux livres crits par deux jeunes talents de l'pistmologie franaise
contemporaine Marion Vorms et Lo Coutellec :
Page
187
" (...) de nombreux philosophes des sciences parlent des thories comme d'entits
abstraites, mais les thories exigent des thoriciens, et les entits abstraites, des
incarnations concrtes". (Cit par Marion Vorms)
Ceux qui ont crit ces propos sont Wimsatt et Griesemer dans leur article publi dans
un ouvrage collectif dit par M. Ruse et intitul : What the Philosophy of Biology Is?
(Dordrecht, 2005). L'article s'intitule son tour : " Picturing Weismannism: A case Study
of conceptual evolution".
La thse principale du livre de Marion Vorms consiste dfendre une certain image de
l'objectivit en science : sans tomber dans une version nouvelle du subjectivisme
scientifique coupl avec un concept de la relativit du rapport de la vrit au rel, la
constcruction de l'objectivit recherche implique aussi bien le rel extra-linguistique et
extra-thorique que l'esprit humain dans sa crativit, ses forces modlisatrices et sa
libert.
En effet, cette thse rejoint sur l'essentiel l'une des rfrences que nous trouvons chez
Lo Coutellec lorsqu'il cite Anne-Franoise Schmid dans un Editorial trs connu crit en
2005 pour Natures Sciences Socits (13, 125-126, 2005). Sous le titre de Les sciences, les
philosophies et la pense : une affaire de justice, Anne-Franoise Schmid dit que l'ide qui
suppose que "les sciences (sont) ignorantes des choses humaines et devant tre
compltes par des considrations plus nobles, de nature philosophique", "cette ide qui
semble aller de soi, est nuisible la science, la philosophie, la pense." (p. 125).
En effet, cette ide devrait tre reconsidre et "il faut (la) briser pour avoir une
conception plus juste des sciences et de leurs relations aux philosophies." (p. 125). Le
point de commencement de tout l'ouvrage de Lo Coutellec (L. C) consiste bel et bien
dmontrer que ce type de justice recherche ne peut tre trouve que dans l'espace
thico-politique de la dmocratie et du pluralisme pistmologiquement encadr.
Certes, les deux auteurs abordent chacun d'un angle de vue diffrent cette
problmatique commune des rapports entre pense, science et philosophie. Pour sa
part, M.V (Marion Vorms) explore la question de tels rapports en se focalisant sur celle
de la thorie scientifique et la rsume de la manire suivante : "ce que dit une thorie
dpend-il (au moins partiellement) de la manire dont elle le dit ?" (p.167).
Qu'est-ce qu'une thorie scientifique ? commence par une analyse de l'activit thorique en
sciences pour se terminer sur des conclusions qui plaident "en faveur d'une tude de la
connaissance scientifique plus attentive aux aspects pratiques et cognitifs du
dveloppement et de l'utilisation des reprsentation thoriques par les agents." (p. 169).
Dans la premire partie, M. V explore cette question dans le contexte de la mcanique
classique et essaie d'expliquer la relation entre son contenu thorique avec les diffrentes
formulations qu'elle a pu donner lieu. "Cette analyse a jet, selon les propres termes de
M.V, un premier doute ...sur la possiblit mme d'isoler le contenu objectif d'une
thorie, par-del ses diffrentes formulations". (p. 167). Avant d'aborder dans la
troisime et quatrime parties la conception "smantique" des thories scientifiques (3)
et les buts et les lmites des entreprises de reconstruction formelle des thories (4), M. V
se concentre sur le programme formaliste reprsent juste titre par R. Carnap et de
faon gnrale sur la conception empirico-logique des thories scientifiques. A cette
occasion, M. V nous invite reconsidrer le type d'approche initie par Ernest Nagel
qui, par le biais du concept de modle, va donner un coup d'arrt la conception de
nature syntaxique promulgue par Carnap et par les adeptes de l'empirisme logique,
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